My dog understood the context of a conversation?
 

We have 4 years old a 15lbs (supposedly) yorkie, but I suspect he has a some Silky genes in him. He is quite stubborn and impulsive, but well trained and smart.We don't want him accidentally eating something that will get him in trouble so he doesn't beg and moves away when we eat. So among things that Mux does and knows deserve the biggest punishment is eating stuff from the floor, so he will NEVER eat something that would drop to the floor.

Mux can understand quite a lot of words most dogs understand like "food", "can" and "can't" etc, but it seems to us that he often appear to understand what we say, so this incident got us quite puzzled...

My wife cleans the dinner table, and a piece of cheese drops to the floor as she moves to the stuff to the kitchen. Mux is laying in the corner and seemingly not paying any attention to it.
"Hey, a piece of cheese fell on the floor"
"Don't worry, Mux will eat it"
"He can't eat that!"
"Nahhh... He can..."
And Mux jumps and grabs the piece of cheese! I'm stumped because he would simply NEVER do that, at least not while we are around. So he understood that we were arguing over it and that my wife approved of him eating something off the floor!

Dow in the world...? :D

Welcome to YT, these pups are smarter then we think lol, my guy understands my phone conversations so I have to spell many things out lol.

My older girl Callie understand plan English. I can talk to her just like I would another human and she will do what I tell her. Probably one of the smartest dogs but stubborn.

Mind giving some examples?

Also another thing.. I was once playing with Mux as if I wanted to sit on his "bed" and he wouldn't let me. He'd curl up in there and stare at me to prevent me. So I ask him, "Will you let me sit on your bed, and I'll give you a treat". So he nicely moves away, stares at me, I sit, and he gets his treat. Well that could've been inferred, but I'm sure one day he's gonna sell us to someone for a treat :)

I am convince these little stinkers have a higher IQ than Einstein. They like to pretend they don't understand but they understand everything. You have to be careful, they are also extremely observant. I used to put my last yorkie in the crate for crate training but when I get home, she would be a the front door waiting for me. At first I thought I wasn't closing the crate but then I put a webcam on her and watched her escape the crate in seconds. She watched how I put her in the crate and how the I lifted the handle and that was how she got out.

So needless to say we were done with crate training.

These little guys understand a lot more than we give them credit for.

Piper eavesdrops on my conversations so that when I ask my mom when she'll be ready-to-eat, Piper pops up and heads toward kitchen. Or if I refer to it be being cold out, Pipe is at the slider wanting to see for herself. And if Piper deems a conversation is going on too long without attention being paid to her, she'll get in between us and ga-ruff, effectively circumventing chat and also getting her attention of some sort! I do believe, little Piper is quite often a step ahead of me!! Smart little suckers these adorable Yorkies!!! Excuse me. Did someone say lunch is ready?

lol....

This is a little on the dark side, but in my mind it illustrates what they can understand.

I recently lost 14-year-old Eddie after 3 rounds of chemo. When we started it, I knew, at best, it was a long shot and that it was probably going to make him sicker before it was going to make him better. I looked him in the eye and told him I needed him to fight. He made it through the first round and actually started doing better.

For the second round, they upped the medicine and I told him I still needed him to fight. He made it through the second dosage, but was weak afterward for almost a full week. With the third, more powerful, dosage coming up, I told him I left it up to him. If he was tired of fighting, I'd understand. I told him I didn't want to make him feel bad, and if he decided it was time to stop fighting, he could go and we'd meet another day.

He died in his sleep the day after his third dosage. I have no doubt he was fighting for me and left when I gave him permission.

I’m sorry for your loss. A similar scenario happened to me with Sophie last year. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor in July and I told her to stay strong and that I wasn’t ready to lose her. I’m August I went in to talk to our vet about her future and what her quality of life would become. This was a Wednesday night. I had a sense of peace that night and Thursday and then it hit me like a ton of bricks that Friday night. I told her that I was sorry for asking her to suffer and that even though I wasn’t ready to lose her I promised I wouldn’t keep her alive for my benefit and that all she needed to do was give me a sign that she was done fighting and I would take her in and I understood if she didn’t want to continue. A few hours later she lost her balance while running and cried out. She couldn’t walk anymore and just laid beside me staring at me and kissing my hands. I knew she was ready and we took her in the next morning and had her put to sleep. She stayed calm that whole night and in the car and didn’t fight the vet or bark...she just kept kissing my face and stayed curled up in her blanket on my lap.

Our current dog on the other hand...does what he wants and doesn’t care what we say to him lol

Makes me tear up. I honestly think Eddie knew how impossibly difficult it would be for me to put him down. He left before I had to.

That made me cry.......I’m still so sorry and can’t imagine.

I'm crying like a baby

That's so cute! Don't you love that they pay such attention to us and what we're doing and saying? It's always flattering to me that a dog would bother with me, let alone study me like a college course, working his hardest to keep me as happy as possible while still serving himself as he feels led, hehe. Dogs fascinate me on a daily basis and never fail to amaze.

Your dog has a Master's degree in you. It's likely he took his cue from the tone of your voice, your scent & body language, which all said "go for the cheese". Dogs don't understand the context of our actual words much but they certainly do constantly study us, learn & read our tone of voice, facial expressions, our physical actions & reactions, our scent at the time we're reacting, our body language and the context of what is going on. He read you, probably not so much your words or the context of them but the context of your body language and the situation at the time, which gave him permission as he read it. They can read us like a book but usually don't rely on just words as books do.

Ohmygosh, the story of little Eddie just tore my heart out. Sweet, sweet baby boy. Ohmygosh. I can't help but cry up every time I hear sweet stories of our babies.

Your story is so over whelming, sweet lil Eddie always trying to please his daddy right to the end.