Why Your Dog Only Listens to One Person in the House

"He only listens to you." I heard it in my own house, and for a while I took it as a compliment. It was not one. It was a description of a problem I had built.

If your dog obeys one person and treats everyone else as background noise, the usual explanations are about respect, or pack leadership, or who feeds him. In most houses I have seen, including mine, the real cause is simpler. The dog is hearing five different languages and has learned exactly one of them.

Count the words

Pick one thing you ask the dog to do, say, get off the sofa. Now listen to the house for a day. One person says "off". One says "down", which means something else to the dog entirely. One says "get down". A child says "no, no, no" and pushes. A grandparent says the dog's name in a disappointed voice and hopes. Five people, five signals, one dog. He does what the person whose words he understands asks, and he does what he likes with the rest. He is not being stubborn. He is being accurate.

One house, one set of words

The fix in our house was dull, and it worked. We agreed one short list of words, perhaps ten, and what each one meant. "Off" meant four paws on the floor. "Wait" meant stay where you are until released. The dog's name meant look at me, nothing more. We wrote the list down and put it on the fridge. Then every person who lived in the house, and every person who visited more than once, used those words and no others.

It took the dog about a week to realise that the same thing was now being asked of him by everyone. It took the humans longer. The adults slipped back to their old words. The children had to be reminded that "no, no, no" is not on the list. But once it held, the dog stopped being my dog who tolerated the others. He became the house's dog.

The person who is least confident needs this most

The person in the house who is nervous around the dog, or simply least interested in him, is the one the dog ignores most, and the one who most needs him to respond. Shared words are what make a dog predictable, and predictability is what a nervous person needs. When "off" means the same thing from the smallest child as from the biggest adult, nobody in the house is helpless with him.

Two words that are for the people, not the dog

Alongside the dog's words, our house has two signals that are for the humans. One tells everyone that a person needs space from the dog right now, and that whoever is nearest takes him somewhere else, without discussion. The other, our emergency word, means an adult takes the puppy and every child steps back. The dog is not expected to understand either. The people are. Having those two words agreed in advance is what let the person in our house who was afraid of dogs live calmly with one.

How to start this week

Sit down with everyone who lives in the house. Agree the list. Keep it short. Write it down where it will be seen. Then be patient with the humans, because they are the slow learners here. If you work with a trainer, give them the list and ask them to use your words, not theirs. A trainer who teaches the dog one language and sends him home to another has done half a job through no fault of their own.

Free help

The free family command card is one page: the words, what each one means, and the two signals for the people, ready to fill in and put on the fridge: mohamedabukhadra.com/help/family-words.

My book After You Say Yes to the Dog is a set of practical manuals for the first weeks and the hard ones, and the shared words run through all of them.

Related: I Do Everything for the Dog. How the Work Lands on One Person · Children and Dogs at Home: Three Words Every Child Should Know

I am a father, not a trainer, a vet or a behaviourist. This is what worked in my house. Anything that touches safety, check with a professional who can see your dog and your home.