240 | Your Dog Knows the Command. That’s Not the Problem.

<p><strong>Hey Dog Lover 🐾</strong></p><p>Come.</p><p>Stay.</p><p>Leave it.</p><p>Off.</p><p>Down.</p><p>Let’s go.</p><p>No.</p><p>We humans are incredibly verbal.</p><p>And somewhere along the way, we seem to have decided that because our dogs live with us, they must also be fluent in English.</p><p>So when we say “come” and our dog doesn’t come, what do we do?</p><p>We say it again.</p><p>Usually louder.</p><p><strong>“COME!”</strong></p><p>As though the problem is that they didn’t hear the English the first time.</p><p>Sometimes dog training looks an awful lot like <strong>shouting English as a second language at your dog.</strong></p><p>And then comes the sentence I hear all the time:</p><p><strong>“But my dog KNOWS come.”</strong></p><p>Okay.</p><p>Maybe they do.</p><p>But do they know what “come” means <strong>here?</strong></p><p>And even if they do, is the word really the entire conversation?</p><p>In this episode, we’re talking about what we’re actually communicating to our dogs, what they’re paying attention to besides our words, and why knowing a command might not be the problem at all.</p><p>We’ll talk about:</p><p>🐾 What we really mean when we say <strong>“My dog knows this”</strong><br>🐾 Why knowing a command in one situation doesn’t necessarily mean your dog understands it everywhere<br>🐾 Why we put so much responsibility on a single word like “come”<br>🐾 Everything your dog is paying attention to besides what’s coming out of your mouth<br>🐾 How movement, body language, spatial pressure, intention, and your history together are all part of the conversation<br>🐾 What happens when your body and your mouth are saying two completely different things<br>🐾 Why your dog may need a reason to choose you, not just a command telling them to<br>🐾 How your relevance and relationship with your dog influence whether they follow your guidance<br>🐾 Why relationship-based communication doesn’t mean we stop teaching or using cues<br>🐾 The question I want you to ask instead of <strong>“What command should I use?”</strong></p><p>Because I absolutely use words with my dogs.</p><p>I teach cues.</p><p>Recall matters.</p><p>Skills matter.</p><p>But the word isn’t carrying the entire conversation.</p><p>Your dog is also learning what <strong>you</strong> mean.</p><p>Your movement.</p><p>Your body.</p><p>Your patterns.</p><p>Your intentions.</p><p>Your history together.</p><p>Your relationship.</p><p>So the next time you find yourself thinking:</p><p><stron