What commands do you give a dog in Spanish?

September 13, 2005 10:13 PM

Hey Spanish-speakers: what commands do you use with your dog?

Just to be clear: yes, I can look up words like "sit" or "stay" in a Spanish-English dictionary. But my dictionary lists 10 Spanish synonyms for "stay." I'd like to know which of them an actual dog trainer would use. I'm pretty sure it matters. Wouldn't you think it was strange if you heard someone shouting "remain!" or "persist!" or "dwell!" at his dog?

Same goes for "sit" and "come" and all the rest. If you know where to find a list of Spanish-language dog training commands, that would be even better.

posted by nebulawindphone to Pets & Animals (12 answers total)

Stay is "Quedate!"
Sit is "Sentado"

I'm not sure of the rest but that might help your search.
posted by vacapinta at 10:31 PM on September 13, 2005

I just did an advanced search on Amazon in the Books section with keywords: dog training, and under the language option, I chose Spanish from the drop-down list (brilliant, I know.)

Many books came up; you could probably just cut-n-paste this title into Google to get you to a similar page:

Como Criar su Perro con Carino y Disciplina

(I don't know Spanish all that well, but I believe that translates to How to Raise your Dog with Caring & Discipline.)

You're obviously not fluent in Spanish, and these books are all IN Spanish, plus they cost money. But I think you can actually like read through books before you buy 'em now. (Kinda strange, no?) But I could be wrong about that. Maybe I should've done more homework before posting!

Anyway, hope this helps a little.
posted by mjpage at 12:51 AM on September 14, 2005

Wouldn't you think it was strange if you heard someone shouting "remain!" or "persist!" or "dwell!" at his dog?

That's just too funny! And SO true of trying to rely on a dictionary for real-world translations.
posted by mjpage at 12:57 AM on September 14, 2005

We're Argentinan, so here's what we say to our wonderful perros in our twisted "Castellano".

BTW, I don't know where the accents go.

"Sentate!" - Sit!
"Quedate ahi!" - Stay there!
"Veni aca!" - Come here!
"A la cucha!" - To your home!
"COMO ESTAN LOS PERROS!!?!?!?" - How are the dogs!?
"Callate [dog's name]" - Shut up!
"Afuera!" - Outside!
"Vamos!" - Let's go!
"Cociname algo!" - Cook me something! ... ok, they're not that good. All they can really make are "dog eggs" which smell horrible.
posted by redteam at 1:07 AM on September 14, 2005

redteam's answers are pretty good. The only one missing that I can see is: "sueltale" - Drop it!
posted by benzo8 at 2:29 AM on September 14, 2005

This thread reminds me of the story a friend of mine told- he adopted this dog, and thought it was trained, but it never responded to his simple commands. Then he figured out somehow the dog had been trained in Spanish. So he had to learn Spanish to talk to his dog.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:57 AM on September 14, 2005 [1 favorite]

For "sit" I was taught "Sientate!" Which is used in chicano Spanish?
posted by davy at 9:14 AM on September 14, 2005

It is "Sientate" (second-person-imperative-reflexive of "sentar") - I guess redteam just made a typo and vacpinta is using the participle, which generally translates as sat, not sit - ie: "Le ha sentado, el perro" - The dog has sat (himself down)...
posted by benzo8 at 9:35 AM on September 14, 2005

No typo, benzo8, that's just the way you would say it in Argentina. The emphasis is like senTAte where the other way (which everyone else uses) is SIENtate.

Also, vacapinta's response is more like "seated" alone, or in a sentence I would say "El perro se ha sentado".
posted by redteam at 9:46 AM on September 14, 2005

I think that is si-EN-ta-te, redteam.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:18 AM on September 14, 2005

(I don't know spanish, but I know some dogs that do) and they respond to "si-EN-ta-te", FWIW. This is in Southern California.
posted by muddgirl at 12:30 PM on September 14, 2005

You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to....

redteam is right about how it's said in Argentina. Everybody else is right about how it's said in Mexico/SoCal/everywhere else. The "vos" tense isn't used anywhere else (except perhaps Uruguay.)

Vos tenés razón, redteam, y pollomacho, tú también tienes razón.

See?
posted by ambrosia at 5:45 PM on September 14, 2005