You come home after a tiresome day to relax and recharge for the next day, one of the best things is your pet dog waiting for you at home. Playing with and seeing it getting excited after seeing you is the most refreshing experience for dog owners. Dogs have been among the humans for 14,000 years. Once the wild beast is now the joyful companion in most people’s lives. In the modern busy society, loneliness has been one of the primary factors effecting people’s mental health. Many people have adopted dogs to overcome loneliness. Incidentally people talk with their dogs. Many dog owners share their everyday stories with their dogs. Apparently talking to dogs help venting out the frustration which has been building up the entire day. But the real question to be asked is that can dogs understand us when we talk to them? What is going on in the mind of the dog when he hears us complaining about our boss or our job? Do dogs have enough cognition to be the human companion in the truest sense? If these questions are in your mind then keep reading till the end of the article.

Dogs are a very intelligent specie when related to other animals. If you’d ask dog owners and if you own a dog yourself then you’d confirm this as well that dogs do understand language. When they’re told to sit they will sit and when they are told to fetch then they will fetch. Practically it appears as if dogs can understand what we are telling them but what does the science tells us regarding this? Science tells us that dogs can understand words and learn to respond to them. Dogs can learn up to 200 words which shows their amazing cognitive abilities. But, what about dogs understanding our conversation? I hate to break it to you but they have no idea what you are saying when you’re talking about how your boss sucks. Dogs can only identify words, so when you say, “Go fetch the ball” all the dogs can understand is “fetch” and the ball you just threw.

You may be asking yourself, “Do dogs understand English?” but let’s answer the question which is one step ahead. It is easy for us humans to theorize that dogs feed off of our energy and when they see us being excited they will automatically get excited. And when we make our tone somber and tell them to behave they know exactly what to do. Science also tells us a similar story. According to a study we find that dogs really prefer our positive body language, and our positive attitude can even influence their decision making. I mean talk about loyalty, right? Research tells us that body language of a human is as important as the speech when communicating with a dog. Thus, your attitude is of vital importance when communicating with your dog.

When communicating with a dog both speech and body language are important. Both of these just enhance the comprehension for the dog. According to a research study we find that dogs processes the speech and the body language through different parts of the brain. Both of these factors are utilized by the dogs for better comprehension. So, it depends on both “how you are saying it” and “what are you saying”. The former is processed by the right side of the brain of the dog and the latter is processed by the left side of the brain. According to a study dogs can also distinguish between gibberish and actual words. So, if you are saying gibberish in an excited tone then you cannot expect them to get excited. But, dogs sometime understand the meaning of words irrespective of the tone. This tells us that there cognitive system has unique attributes.

As we have discussed the brain function of dogs earlier in the article, it can be concluded that dogs and human infants share the same cognitive function to communication. Human infants too are able to distinguish between words and study the tone and body language of the communicator. So, it is safe to say that just like we communicate with babies by emphasizing on certain command words i.e. “No”, “Eat”, etc. we can effectively communicate with our dogs. But this is only half the picture. It is also required that we work on the tone. For instance, if we are trying to discipline the dog then we make our tone a little serious, this will work more effectively. And when we are trying to reward the dog we ourselves become more excitable. This way we can effectively communicate with the dog.