What People Say to Dogs When Playing

“Good Girl!”

What are the most common words we say to dogs when we play with them?

Discover Magazine reports that Alexandra Horowitz and her colleague Julie Hecht of Barnard College’s Dog Cognition Lab have just published a study on how humans and dog play. They conducted the study because they believe the findings will ultimately help us train service dogs. One of the things they studied was what words we use when we play with our pooches. Here are the top ten words:

1. 1. 1. you
   2. 2. good
   3. 3. it
   4. 4. get / got
   5. 5. go / gonna
   6. 6. come / c’mon
   7. 7. (dog’s name)
   8. 8. girl
   9. 9. yay / yeah
   10. 10. that

Discover reports:

[the researchers] pored over the videos to analyze the apparent attitude, or “affect,” of both humans and dogs. They found that owners who seemed to be having an especially good time touched their dogs more, stayed closer, and moved around more while they played.

On the other hand, the researchers didn’t get much information out of the dogs themselves. That’s because dog moods didn’t really vary, they explain: “Dog affect was overwhelmingly positive.”

Of course “dog affect” was “overwhelmingly positive!” Who’s ever met a dog that didn’t have fun playing?

Click here if you want to buy the full study results, it costs $39.95, or just read an abstract.

I’ve written about researcher Alexandra Horowitz many times. She’s the author of one of my favorite dog books, Inside of a Dog.