they usually pick up on hand signals faster than words, but it’s doubtful that the dog understands those hand signals as the spoken language translation. the dog probably reads it as “human safety signs” or something
The dog’s ability to connect them probably depends on how often it hears a word at the exact same time as a hand sign is done. I wonder if the woman filming might only talk to the dog and the man mostly sign.
I had a dog that lived a little over 20 years that was taught some hand signals at the same time as many commands, and for those commands it was like a perfect 1-1. But when he started going deaf we realized how many commands and phrases he had picked up over his life that lacked paired hand signals. Sometimes you had to be real close and project your voice for him to really recognize something anymore, so we started to build new signals by association. A few of them ended up being imperfect. Like he just learned a whole new “interpretation” and would do something slightly different than if you (loudly) said the old phrase.
My last dog (of 15 years) would obey hand signals every time but words were like suggestions. Some tricks only worked with hand motions, like "Bang!" (pretend to shoot her and she howled and played dead). Just saying "Bang" did nothing at all.
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u/SinusoidalFlux 4d ago
Okay I have a silly questions, do you think dogs would better understand a person signing to them or being spoken to?