A radio host once noticed that every New Study either confirms what our common sense already tells us, or it’s wrong. That’s a little oversimplified, but the gist rings true.
A New Study from Hungary purports to show the type of speech and speaker that dogs prefer.
The researchers did functional MRI on dogs’ brains to observe how they responded to different types of speech. The conclusion: dogs are more sensitive to prosodic speech, especially by female speakers.
Vocab word I just learned: prosodic (pro-SO-dik) — expressive speech with a lot of rhythm and intonation. Think about the way many adults talk to babies…or animals…such as dogs. But why do some people talk to dogs in the sing-songy way they way they do? Because the dogs respond to it.
So academic research scores another point for common sense. If dogs didn’t respond to that kind of speech, then people wouldn’t do it.
The interesting follow-up to this study is to ask what we do with this information. Does it make us better trainers or owners? The fact that a dog may be more sensitive to exaggerated dogtalk doesn’t necessarily imply that I can communicate more effectively with my dog in that way. In other words, the fact that he listens to me more closely when I dogtalk doesn’t mean he’ll actually do what I tell him.
I have a lot to say about this from working with clients and dogs with different personalities (humans’ and dogs’), but for now, I’ll make the very general statement that, in my experience, emphasizing treble tends to give motivation, while emphasizing bass tends to promote compliance.
Ultimately, as a trainer and owner, you need to know your dog well enough to get him through whatever situation you’re in. Sit still for the vet, cross a loud, busy street, settle down while the baby is sleeping. Tone of voice commands is a helpful tool to use that some people use but rarely think about systematically.
