Anybody here with a bilingual dog?
I have one whose language is basically Spanish. Meanwhile, she's been adopted into a mostly English-speaking household.
I've been teaching her English commands, and she's been responding rapidly.
But I'd like to retain the Spanish commands she already knows, because we spend much time in Mexico.
Do you have any tips?
10 Answers
My dog is bilingual, I think 
I have taught him all kinds of commands in English and Spanish, but also with hand signals. I bet I could say "gobbledegook" with the right hand signal and he would sit. My trainer says that dogs respond much faster to hand signals than to oral commands since hand signals are pretty much the same all the time whereas oral commands change depending on tone, emotion, urgency, volume, accent, and the person giving the command.
So, try practicing all the Spanish commands and incorporating hand signals. Then, give the same hand signals with the English commands. I bet she will catch on even faster.
Our mestizo Jack Russel/Chihuahua is tri-lingual: Mom speaks to him in Spanish, I speak to him in Spanglish, Dad & my other siblings speak to him in English, and the maids speak to him in Tagalog.
I have a bilingual cat!
I just started Spanish this week with my dogs. I don't think it will make any difference to them because I'll be using essentially the same inflection and tone of voice as the English commands. And it won't make any difference to them because they don't obey, anyway. I'm doing it mainly as an excuse to practice.
I speak to my dog {su nombre es Niña} in what little Spanish I know
. She responds to her name, venir and galleta and that's about all. But then that's is all she responds to in English as well. Funny you should bring up the hand signals because I tried learning A S L and Spanish combined a while back and it really helps for remembering words. It doesn't do very much for the grammar though.
Yes, my kids has three dogs, and all of them are bilingual, my kids talk to them in English and my ex talk to them in Spanish. And they understand both.
I used to have one. A little Dominican poodle, very cute by the way. Her name was Viernes, only because she was the 5th of five puppies. The other ones were named after the week as well and as we know the Spanish calendar starts on Monday. She knew the Spanish commands like súbete, bájate, etc...
We adopted a 4-year-old English cocker three years ago from a Spanish-speaking family, and it had always occurred to me that he had been spoken to in Spanish with them, but I couldn't test it, not knowing enough of the language. We knew he was smart, as he learned at least fifty English words and phrases. Then recently I started learning Spanish myself, and on a whim yesterday, I asked him "Donde es pelota?" ("Where's the ball?") and he run into another room to get a tennis ball. This is a whole 'nother world!!
Paralee - are you a professional dog trainer, too?
Your suggestion for incorporating hand signals with the verbal commands is excellent. That's a great teaching technique, combining physical movement with the verbal.
I have been using hand signals with my older dog who is 105 years old in "dog years" and is totally deaf. I use hand signals with him all the time. But never thought of doing so with the younger.
I'm starting today!
Thanks...
When I was in college I was fortunate enough to do a study abroad program one summer. I lived with a family in México, d.f. and took some courses at a university there. The family had a dog and on my first or second day there the dog got in trouble and the señora of the family started fussing at him in Spanish. I started laughing and said "Didn't you know dogs only speak English?" Of course I was kidding but it struck me as funny. I'd never really thought about animals in other countries learning other languages until that day. That dog sure listened to Spanish though!
