How important is tone of voice?

After watching Linds's videos with Hiccup, I realized that my "good boy"/reinforcement/excited voice is actually really boring. It's not enticing at all!

I don't know if it has effected any of my training with Smiley, but I can't help but wonder if he would be more driven if my happy voice was really happy sounding.

What are everyone's thoughts? Do your positive, neutral, and negative tones of voice change drastically? Does an obvious happy tone change your dog's behaviour?

I used to think it was more important than I do now, yet it's still important. my praise is usually pretty boring, but my dogs don't care. At first maybe they did, but now they know what is reinforcing and what isn't because we trained that way. I had to because i'm not screaming like a little girl to be reinforcing or make them happy or excited. I make a horrible sound when I do

The interaction with me is exciting and rewarding for them, and I can make subtle changes in that to convey meaning and we understand each other.

I do think voice inflection is important though in that i can convey my meaning by tone as well, but it's not overt, yet my dogs understand very well what I'm telling them.

I think it really depends on the dog, too. Sam gets wayy overstimulated and loses focus if I start talking in a loud excited voice, so I praise him more calmly than I do Wilson. Wilson still needs to be assured that the world isn't going to eat him at times so really excited praise is the only praise that he even responds to in those situations. So with Wilson I just praise him in a really excited party voice all the time.

I notice it makes a big difference in all my dogs.

Critical for my dogs, but they are soft, low drive weenies.

I hate how I sound in videos :rofl1:

I notice I tend to do it a lot more with new dogs or dogs I don't know well or if I'm doing a new activity or an activity they struggle with.

So training something new, or in a new place with distraction, or with a new dog I'm going to sound a lot more upbeat.

Things they know well, with dogs I know well in things that are easy for them I am still loud but less squeaky. But when trying to work up my dogs my voice just does that.

Can't tell you if it helps or not but I do know I tend to get dogs that I'm teaching more willing to work with me and I usually talk to them in that tone of voice!

Glitch loves the happy voice. And the not happy voice. And the angry voice. And my regular voice. He is not a picky creature.

Gambit gives me a look that says 'Mom, you're embarassing both of us, and you know I'm not going to do it anyway."

Gimmick hates the happy voice. He's very suspicious by nature, and I think he fears the happy voice is a sign of Mommy being taken over by a pod mother with button eyes.

I think some dogs get it more than others and some you can teach it to. Stuart Mah told us to think about horse people and not just the tone but the speed they talk for different things, like "YA YA YA" loud and fast when you want faster and "eeeeeasyyy, whoooooa" long and slow and low when you want slower. I think it's a good concept and for a lot of dogs seems to work.

Does not work for Paytons. Working on teaching it to him.


Also I specifically teach my dogs that scary angry yelling is part of a game.

I'd say, it depends on the dog. Some are more intune than others.

To Leo...way too dang much!
He is a dog who is super into details, the kind that pays attention to the smallest difference in hand gesture and yes, voice. Friends have a hard time getting him to do the tricks he does perfectly for me, because they don't "say it right" according to him.

Because I know this about him, I can actively try to counter it when I train a new thing, by actively varying up tone, pitch, left hand versus right, height of hand signal etc. He does better about generalizing if I don't fall into a pattern from the very beginning.

But it can still be a struggle.

For instance, Leo can sometimes tell if something exciting is about to happen based on my tone of voice for a recall. Like, he will recall happily if I my voice is "training happy", but will go in full alert if my voice is different or sounds worried. This caused him to actively seek to blow me off BEFORE even seeing anything to blow me off for.

"here": *recalls perfectly*
"here": *recalls perfectly*
"here": *recalls perfectly*
"HEre": "OH MY GOODNESS! Is there a dog? There must be a dog I don't see? Where is the dog? Heck no I am not recalling"

If I am recalling my dog because I spot something that will be a distraction for him, I have to be insanely careful what the tone of my voice is, and when I train, I have to actively change up my pitch and volume, otherwise he gets way too much meaning from my voice.

I pretty much always train in a calm/neutral voice and encourage others to do the same, with slight exceptions/variances based on individual dogs.

With Milo, (and many dogs) using an amped up excited voice just triggered zoomies and cued his brain falling out of his head. If I was training a dog for sports, or, in particular, competing, I could probably use this to my advantage. But mostly I'm training dogs to act like reasonable creatures in day to day life.

For my dogs, yes, it matters!

Abrams won't even look at you if you say his name normally. You have to bark it, say it deep and sharp. That's his recall. To get his attention, I say it much quieter, but still with the same inflection.

Happy noises = SO HAPPY MUST RUN CIRCLES YEY!!!!! Dufus noises = wiggly happy. Sharp tones = stop/pay attention. Normal tones = average, lackadaisical responses.

I do mark with a calm, happy tone. "Yes!" We save the happy praise for end of task rewards - it amps him up too much otherwise.

Holy crap yes. Any hint of panic or concern or seriousness in my voice and she is immediately looking for whatever I'm calling her off of.

Pippa is very sensitive to tone of voice, and I've had to make adjustments so that I don't inadvertently up her arousal when she is getting wound up. Calm and quiet is the name of the game with her, but to be honest I don't talk to her much except to mark behaviors ("YES!") or to happy-talk when she's done something especially good.

On a related note, a dog went after her at the dog park about a week ago, and my resulting "HEY" flattened every dog in the fenced acre. Whoops!

I believe it really depends on the dog. Rara can get REALLY pumped and excited to do anything in a second if I start using my super exaggerated happy and high and encouraging and bouncy voice/body language. It seems to instantly raise her confidence level too, to try out new tricks. But when I've tried that with Lancer in the past, he just becomes instantly anxious and almost overstimulated, in a way? Lancer responds best to a level and firm voice and body language. Mind this only applies to reinforcement voices.

Very interesting responses.


For the record Linds, I think your happy voice is great and has really got me thinking of how I could be more encouraging with Smiley

If Hugo already has lazer focus on me, then I usually use a sharp fast "yes" and move on to the next thing we're doing, especially at home or in the yard. If we're somewhere really distracting he sort of needs me to meet him half way in the engagement process and I'll use a happier more excited tone until he's focused on me if we're working. When we're taking a break and playing I'm pretty goofy.