r/BeAmazed • u/Separate_Finance_183 • 17h ago

Miscellaneous / Others Dog-sitter in Luxembourg tests which language the dog understands

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83

u/pierogi_waystation 11h ago

My schnauzer is bilingual. He is immersed in English and that’s his basic commands/praise language. However, as a fail-safe to ensure that a rando doesn’t command him to do something forbidden, his advanced commands are strictly in German.

It shouldn’t matter because I’m his handler and (theoretically) I’m the only one he should obey for any advanced commands, but it seemed reckless to bet bystanders’ safety on that.

Btw, for some reason, about half of everyone who finds out he’s trained in bitework immediately turns on the spot, picks out a person, and commands him to attack that person. I don’t understand why they do this. They seem delighted, like they’re going to see something amazing they’ve never seen before and like, yeah, I assume you’ve never seen every bone in someone’s arm turned into gravel by 110 lbs of snarling black nightmare.

Luckily he has no idea what the words “attack”, “bite” or “restrain” mean. Thankfully, I’ve never had occasion to use the advanced commands anywhere other than the training grounds and in competition.

4

u/Lightofmine 10h ago

Couldn’t they just know the German word for bite?

35

u/pierogi_waystation 10h ago

They absolutely could, but there’s a specific German nonsense command phrase that I trained him to associate with the advanced commands. I’ve never seen him posture up without that phrase, even in training when I say the German commands. He becomes a very different animal when he’s in work-mode.

But all of that is really supposed to be fail-safes, and most people who have bite-trained dogs don’t bother with alternate commands. My schnauzer is an excellent dog, but he’s eager to please. Very eager. He loves to show new people how good of a boy he is. I couldn’t be confident that he wouldn’t immediately obey a violent command just to show off how smart he is. That was never an issue in training, but I just couldn’t shake the anxiety that it might be different in the real world.

He has never had a problem, knock on wood. But he does perk up if someone is speaking German, like he’s listening more intently.

3

u/CheGueyMaje 4h ago

Ich find das toll, dass du so vorsichtig bist.

2

u/Sea-Consequence7156 10h ago

Yeah but at that point it goes beyond playing around to willful intent if not in wurope

3

u/NosamEht 9h ago

How, exactly, do you say, “sick balls chopper” in German?

14

u/Electrical-Review180 9h ago

Kranke Bälle Hubschrauber

3

u/Jisai 3h ago

schön gelacht :D

2

u/NosamEht 8h ago

Thank you!

2

u/Electrical-Review180 2h ago

I feel bad now. It's a literal 1:1 translation

2

u/NosamEht 2h ago

I’d have never looked it up if you didn’t translate it.

2

u/Electrical-Review180 2h ago

Lol please still try and yell it at your dog

3

u/pierogi_waystation 7h ago

DAMMIT now I need a new work-mode phrase!!!

1

u/Electrical-Review180 9h ago

That's so cool. What do you do with your dog? Because you're mentioned that you're his handler

1

u/Krustenbaecker 4h ago

Would not work here

1

u/rollerblowster 9h ago

You write like a teenage edgelord and I’m fucking here for it! Please write a book it’s so entertaining! I have a colleague who taught her dog in French for exactly this reason.

2

u/bringbackfireflypls 7h ago

"This."

Reading OPs comment felt like going back in the reddit time machine to when everybody spoke like massive neckbeards haha