A national survey by a veterinary association recently found that only 30 per cent of dogs actually knew their name, especially in houses with multiple dogs and children. Dogs thought their names were “Susie, come here,” or “Pudge, get over here!.” But most dogs don’t really know their names.

They respond to habit, food or tone of voice.

Word recognition is a tricky thing when it comes to dog training, humans throw a lot of words at dogs, and as brilliant as we keep hearing that they are, they don’t understand the meaning of most of the words they hear. When a dog is young, I hold food up to my eyes, look them in the eye once they are looking at me, say the dog’s name as I drop the food. This may take awhile, as we use a lot of words around dogs.

But I want to see the head swivel when I say their name, and some eye contact.

Dog commands should be brief and only repeated once in my experience: “Red,” and then when he is looking at me “Sit” or “Stay” or “Lie Down.” If the dog doesn’t respond, I look away, try again in four or five minutes. If you follow my videos, you will see that I often screw this up. “I’ll say “Red, lie down” or “Fate, get over here!” These are not really commands, they are lot of words it is hard for the dog to grasp.

Commands should really all be one word, even one syllable.

It’s tricky with two or three dogs, especially when sheepherding with more than one dog, so I have begun using the dog’s names. “Red, come bye,” or “Fate, go to the sheep.” The dogs are picking up their own roles and identities and responding well to these commands, but there is still confusion.

Out in the woods, I am introducing new commands all the time. At the end of each walk, I ask the dogs both to lie down and wait for me and Maria to catch up. We don’t want them running into the road or off after a cat or chipmunk. At first, I said “Dogs, Lie Down,” but they were confused. They are used to hearing their names now, especially when together.

So then I said, “Red, Fate, lie down.” They were still confused, not sure who I was talking to do.

So I introduced a new command “Down.” One word, as all good commands are, said simply and clearly, no shouting.

They looked at me at first, and I added, the hand command for “down”, an outstretched palm  being lowered. They looked at each other and then at me, and then Red dropped, and then Fate dropped.

I saw that “dogs” got their attention, even though they weren’t sure what to do. If I waited, and then said “down,” that seemed to work.

This was the breakthrough, I praised them both and even used the obnoxious and to me, unnecessary high voice. My dogs know me well and they know if I am happy or not happy. I don’t have to squeak like a mouse.

The next day they went down quicker, and this morning, both lay down right away.

“Dogs,” to get their attention.

Then, “down,” the command.

Then, when they lay down, “good!” in a positive voice.

As I got closer, I added “stay” to keep them there. It’s working. Took about a week.

So far, so good. Today, they both dropped instantly and stayed.

You just have to think about it and be simple and clear. And patient. It’s a trial and error thing don’t believe the trainers who tell you there is only one way to do it.

If you want to know if your dog knows his or her name, simple: Say “Susie,” and if Susie knows your name, her head ought to swivel and she ought to look you in the eye. If she doesn’t, you have work to do.