Dogs don't understand any language. It's a matter of them associating a sound that comes out of your mouth with a desired action. You could teach your dog to "sit" on the word "bananas" if you felt like it. My dogs will even work without words - I have hand cues for: sit, down, and wait. Competition obedience ONLY uses hand commands.
I have always been taught to be consistent and only have one word for each command. But this is for a situation where the dog's being tested on the speed at which they respond to the command (agility).
I'm sure that you could teach a dog that more than one sound requires the same action. But when you're first teaching a command I would be consistent and only use the one word in one language. Once your dog is really really solid then you can start adding a new command word.
It's got to be what works for you. I know I have a tendency to use more than one word for some things - and the yorkies can usually guess what I mean -- but it does take them longer to figure it out. |