Best way to learn to speak Dog is to work with the dogs in a performance event -- obedience, agility, flyball, hunting retriever, whatever -- because it motivates you to really understand what makes them tick.
My 11 year old has a vocabulary of about 200 words, I'm not sure how large my Dog vocabulary is but I usually know what she's thinking. (Anybody who says dogs don't have a sense of humor hasn't met her.)
It’s very humbling to realize that a dog can learn ~our~ language yet we often cannot fathom *their* language at all.
What I’ve learned, besides reading many *excellent* books was from just watching them interact with each other.
If you watch carefully and closely, you can read what each subtle tilt of ear or tail, glance or tiny bit of posture change “means”.
Since I was basically raised by dogs, [mostly Dobes] because I had no kids in my neighborhood and “busy” parents, I learned to ‘speak’ both dog and horse pretty early.
It always annoyed my dad that I could get the horses to do incredible things and behave perfectly although they would act like maniacs when he was near them.
He simply didn’t “get” what they were “saying” and got quickly frustrated and angry with them.
Even “his” dogs only listened to me.
My teen-years WonderDobe had an incredible vocabulary.
There were even many words you couldn’t ‘fool’ him with by spelling them.
Odin is proving to be “psychic”, for the lack of a better word.
If I *think* something, he’ll react.
A good example is my Ibizans and Podengo.
They’re very playful, very noisy and bouncy silly, carefree things.
When they start their crazy “zoomies” in the middle of the night, I’ll think to myself “Oh, God...SHUT UP!” and without me saying a word, Odin will jump off my sofa and go over and butt between them, thereby showing authority and “demanding” a cease to the insanity.
I did not teach him that.
One night, he simply did it himself.
He also goes back outside and “rounds them up” when they’re running like maniacs around the yard and won’t come in...and “mom” is freezing awaiting their return.
I’ll just say “Go fetch the girls in” and off he goes.
Maybe he’d be a good sheep dog....:)