German Dog Commands | Hacker News Reader

German Dog Commands

fluentu.com

63 pointsrolph80 comments

Humorous or not, there was a video of a dog trainer that trained his (you guess it: German Shepherd) in German commands, partly so that when he worked with client's dogs, he could use English, and his German-speaking dog who would be in close proximity (useful for reactive training) wouldn't compete with the client's dog.

Reginald Foster, a great Latin expert whom I once got to study with, emphasized that Latin isn't inherently difficult as a spoken language, as evidenced by the fact that it used to be lots of people's native language and used for all kinds of ordinary daily purposes.

One of his slogans for this was "in Roma antiqua, etiam canes Latine locuti sunt" ('in ancient Rome, even the dogs spoke Latin').

Nice video of a contemporary latin-speaking community: https://youtu.be/sfWMgWnSQUw

I had heard about that lecture, but I hadn't seen the video before. The Latin is quite easy for me to follow, but I'm still impressed by Luke Ranieri's fluency (really on par with some of the most skilled Latin speakers I've met, well beyond my level even when I was regularly participating in spoken Latin events).

Hopefully I'll get to meet him and speak Latin with him some day.

"latine" with an e on the end is ablative, first declension?

This ‑e is an adverb ending. The belonging adjective is «latinus» ‹Latin›.

that makes more sense to me, because i asked thinking it was a typo on ablative with implicit lingua

Yes, one way of referring to Latin is "lingua Latina" or just "Latina", but there's an old custom of using adverbs to refer to use of languages. So Latine is "in Latin" or "Latinly" (and there are similar adverbs available for other languages).

Interestingly, the language adverbs are also used in a construction with scire (to know) or intellegere: "Latine scit" (he or she knows Latin), "Graece intellegit" (he or she understands Greek). In English we would definitely think of this as needing a direct object, but Latin allows it as an adverb, to understand "in a Greek way" (perhaps it would make sense to think of it as something like "in a Greek manner" or "from a Greek perspective").

yep totally understand, had four years of latin in the 80s, some Greek, and many more. it's interesting to see how an idea gets phrased slightly differently across even related languages, i have to admit.

So we're doing the opposite. As we're in the German spesking part of europe, our dog listens to English to not interfere with daily talk. It's IMHO one of the best choices to take a foreign language for your dog. You can also use different languages for different setups (e.g. to differentiate fun, working). Dogs anyway don't speak the language, they just listen to the voice, but as an owner it's easier to set context by moving to a different language.

The evil of global mutable state strikes again.

This is why I only train my dogs in a pure functional language.

Just don't be confused if they then follow the commands side-effect free.

"Reduce!" ("Reduzier!")

"Map!" ("Bild ab!")

It's merely the software architectural mistake of only constructing a broadcast channel.

Security by obscurity is fundamentally weak, this use wastes bandwidth, and can be destroyed by statistical analysis where the other dogs learn German.

I don't think you can entirely remove the side effect of getting treats.

Treats are without a doubt the only true universal language.

I think if I said sitz to my English-trained dog, she would sit.

Maybe your dog has been taking German classes while you’re at work…

Turns out if we say any word with the same inflection as sit, our dog sits!

I think it's partly because "sit" is one of the first commands they learn so if they're not sure what to do, they'll default to sit as that often gets the treat.

That's also why you teach "sit" first before, "bite the face of the person in front of me" (talking German Shepherds again)

We do it with our herding dogs so you can give the different dogs different commands.

Now I’m dying to know what kind of herding you do that requires this separation of powers

Just sheeps and it's a small herd we have for fun next to our vineyards. One dog could probably handle thm alone but it's more fun with two ;)

I think this is a great idea in general - security through obfuscation, kinda.

> German-speaking dog

Impressive!

Used in Schutzhund, German dog sport/training: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzhund

Also, it seems like some police dogs in the USA that were probably trained in Germany use these German dog commands too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlntC-WAbd0

you have eluted, the hidden point.

informed is stronger than ignorant.

stay safe.

I have one of these lol (a dog with competitive parents). Get a load of our breeder's website, its a trip back in time. https://www.glaurungkennel.com/

Our little buddy is the silver collar here, https://www.glaurungkennel.com/LitterK.html

Definitely a trip back in time, I did a website almost exactly the same for Bernese mountain dogs except without the flame background.

But with the batwings I hope

Nah, those were a classy touch. IIRC it was some Thomas Kinkade-lookin' bullshit.

ah man I can totally picture that. very on brand for a big ass BMD living in like maine or vermont

I totally want a batwinged attack dog now

Do they have other languages? My dog is an immigrant and it would be nice to use his native language.

Teach him Rust

Oh wait, wrong Thread!

My dog doesn't know Rust, but he is fluent in Ruff!

> Oh wait, wrong Thread!

Pretty sure actual Rust advocates will disagree.

I'm told (but have no direct knowledge) that many police dogs in the US are trained to german commands. This is because previously (and in some cases still) police departments used dogs trained in Germany and they have continued so that there is continuity of commands (ie you don't have to know which dogs speaks which language).

Sometimes it's Dutch instead, but that's true.

Many agencies, especially those new to having K-9 or small departments that may not be able to spend time dedicated to training from puppies, get dogs from Europe that are partially or fully trained. The lineage of the working dog breeds is much better in Europe because many breeds have bloodlines that haven't been bred for generations to be pets (like here in the US).

It's also why agencies pay so much for the dogs. Last I heard (I used to be more involved volunteering with my local PD) a fully trained dog was around $25k, USD, a partially trained was something like $8k - $10. It sounds like a lot until you realize a fully trained dog is 18—24 months old when acquired and has been training every day during that time.

Yes, this is true. Many personal protection dogs as well.

Haha nice one. As a kid I had these friends in the neighborhood (Netherlands) whose dad trained Malinois shepherds and sold them worldwide to security services and police units.

In my city are four day marches in the summer where also international military participate. Before dawn, all these soldiers walk from the forest - where they sleep - to the starting point. It was customary for us as kids to wave to the soldiers and wish them good luck and ask for some souvenirs/stickers.

One day my friends had their dog with them and we learned the command 'luid' (loud in English, laut im Deutsch) so the dog would bark. Early in the morning, exhausted soldiers that did not even had their morning coffee, very quiet outside, and then the dog would bark them to shock with our little whispers of 'luid'. Good times.

> 2. Drop it / Let go — Aus. In German, aus is a preposition meaning “out of.”

It also means "off" and – in sports – "offside", which I think is much closer to what "aus" means in this context.

"Aus" means the dog should let go what’s in his mouth.

It means something like "Spuck es aus", "Spit it out"

There are many cases where people use it and the dog does not have anything in their mouth.

What do you say when it should go outside?

"Es ist aus" can also be translated as "It is over" (a game)

The meaning in dog schools is "Spit it out", but given aus's versatility within human language, it's often used as a general "stop" command. As in "aus", stop playing.

Not really, offside is Abseits.

In this case Aus means out like in spit it out or out with it, "raus damit".

I've only heard "Abseits" in football but "Aus" definitely exists in tennis.

"Aus" in a sports context means out.

These would be fun for voice control in a video game.

Which would be called Castle Woofenstein.

I grew up speaking German and still use "zu!" with my (otherwise English-trained) dogs for "get out of the way!".

I've never seen a GSD actually obey the drop/aus command without you having something to trade for

The GSDs I grew up with would do it pretty immediately, but I had to occasionally praise them when they did it so they wouldn't lose the habit. They're pretty damn smart and will figure out some pretty complex behaviors just from positive reinforcement. I once taught a GSD in one session to sit patiently 10 feet away from the vehicle gate at my childhood home when I arrived home by stopping the truck every time started walking forward. By the 3rd or 4th time of my inching forward he had figured out that the only way to get me to pull in and get out of the truck was to sit patiently and I never had to train him on it again.

Crappy owners. The GSD I have is like a cyborg, yet very friendly. WFH help the training. Most owners do not train their dogs and the alpha in GSDs come out easily.

Decades ago, the GSD we had, kept both myself and then-babymomma "together" – cyborg is a good attempt to capture their routineness, but they truly are 2nd-command pack-leaders, and will step in as alpha when necessary. Absolute loverdogs.

"Charlie" would plotz [sit] among the goodest of boys #RIP

Never have I experienced love like I did from that GSD. I still have a photograph of him on my mantle (despite have had many great animal friends, the only doggo pictured). He kept two humans alive at their lowests... one bowl of chow at a time.

RIP Charlie. <3

I've never even taught it to my dog, as she just drops toys at my feet after fetching them. She just enjoys the though of the stick being thrown too much to waste time on holding on to it.

What do you do when she picks up some food on the street? There are people who place meat interlaced with poison where I live; so having a surefire way to make mine spit out whatever he’s got in his mouth is essential

Dunno, I just yell at her, and she drops it and looks at me :) I haven't heard about poison meat, but she sure loves to find and eat the most disgusting stuff, up to, and including, poop.

This tool is incredibly effective. ive zapped myself with it to test. feels like a very very strong static shock. Our dog Solo has been zapped only a handful of times. When he wears the collar now we don't even really turn it on or use it - just knowing it exists is enough for him to drop his frisbee/ball/etc. https://www.ecollar.com/product/ez-900-easy-educator-1-2-mil...

Some of them will know you're doing it and get pissed off

In Germany, using shock collars on dogs is even verboten.

As someone who speaks German, it feels puzzling to me why I would teach my dog German commands (even though I have a GSD), these are just the regular words/phrases for things but in a different language.

It's better with dogs to use commands that sound harder for hard commands - stop, down, wait, etc. Which German's love of crisply pronounced consonants tends to lend itself to.

its a weak authentication. if you use a dog for work/husbandry, law military, it does two things.

1] regionally unfamiliar language, dog will obey your commands, but not commands of regional language.

2] parrallel handling, different dogs trained in different languages dont step on each others task,in response to the same cue command.

e.g. left dog, sprech im ze deutsch - right dog, govorite po russki

I hope your Russian is better than your German...;-p

i spoke both conversationally with my grandfather before he passed, he was russian/german i spoke english as native language, but later began learning a few others.

i get them mixed up when cold, but if speaking for a while i can get in a zone.

my spelling is atrocious i think i see where you complain:

Sprechen Sie Deutsch %:P

Très peu ;-p

When I was a kid, my neighbors had a doberman pinscher they named, "schatzie" ("sweetheart").

I remember them using the "sitz" and "platz" commands.

Platz. That’s the one German command I give to my shepherd.

I trained her over 11 years ago using Michael Ellis videos and picked it up there. If she was younger I’d incorporate some more of these.

"Sitz" and "platz" sound too similar, so to make it easier, some german people I know use a mixture of german and english.

"Sitz!" for sit

"Down!" for down.

The most important one is missing:

Fass!

You better know what it means when a dog owner points at you and says "Fass!".

There is a hilarious episode by German comedian Gerhard Polt about this word where he plays the owner of a Kampfhund (the genuine grandson of the great-uncle of the dog of Adolf Hitler) who goofs around alternating between "Fass!" and "Nicht Fass!" not realizing that the dog is not capable of distinguishing between the two.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=I5sFagE-zqw

(In German, obviously - the Bavarian kind)

its down lower on the side bar list:

32 Attack - Fass

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/german/german-dog-commands/#toc...

The 2004 film 'Catch that Kid' informed me of dogs being trained in German

The list goes to 48 (!), in case you’re fooled by the self-promo and “PS” after number 20.

TIL: Phooey is actually a german word, Pfui.

All German sounds like dog commands

*Dog Commands in German

I have an ultra-trained GSD, and I find German commands cringe and pretentious.

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