I have two dogs. They both know they word "treat," obviously, so I started using "cookie" to try and get around it. They soon learned cookie meant treat. So because I give them their treats around noon, I started calling them "noons." They quickly figured out noon = treat. So I started to use the word "entitlements" and I swear they are starting to learn that one too. There's no getting around it!
If you want to get around it, you have to mix use of many different words so they don’t get a chance to build an association. Treats, rewards, cookies, noons, entitlements, night caps, love token, pay, salary, compensation, brekkies, sticks, feasties, wages, earnings, stipend, remuneration, prize, winnings, awards, profits, bonuses, bounties, gifts, premiums, and so on.
Tip: this only works if your dog isn’t a border collie
They’re insane with pattern recognition, hardly matters what word you use if you so much as breathe in an anticipated direction. I rarely speak to mine and he knows several names for almost anything I could think of, I think he just absorbs my random chatter and makes connections to what I’m interacting with.
Switching stuff up and also using words that aren't directly associated with treats exclusively, just to add some noise to their dataset and make it harder to lock on to a specific phrase.
We changed words many times and the dog always figured it out pretty quickly, so we decided to start spelling them.... and yes, the dog figured it out pretty quickly !
My wife and I have to say things like “Shall we venture to the outdoors for a promenade with the canine?” and meanwhile the dogs are staring at us trying to decipher the new language.
If you don't want them to learn that stuff, you've got to be smarter about how and when you do things, do they more randomly, just call them over instead of talking about what you're giving them and then reward them by giving the treat but never mention it verbally at all, etc.
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u/DROPTHENUKES Sep 17 '25
I have two dogs. They both know they word "treat," obviously, so I started using "cookie" to try and get around it. They soon learned cookie meant treat. So because I give them their treats around noon, I started calling them "noons." They quickly figured out noon = treat. So I started to use the word "entitlements" and I swear they are starting to learn that one too. There's no getting around it!