::A Geek in Korea::

Yoshi has indeed grown on me. I’ve had him for nearly six weeks, and he’s become "part of the family". One of the considerations we had to make when looking for a new apartment was the veranda area where we would keep him while we work in the afternoons. He’s gotten better about targeting his defecation to a space generally confined to a few areas usually covered by clean papers. He’s also learned a few tricks that we’ve been working on since we got him. What’s cool is that he’s a bilingual dog, and knows Korean and (some) English commands.

The first thing we taught him was to "sit" obviously. This was the first thing all dog training guides and books suggested. We happened to use the English command, but the Korean "An-ja!" wouldn’t have been any harder for him to learn. This is accompanied by making a fist at the same time as a non-verbal clue. If there is one thing he picked up quickly, it was how to sit. Once he got that mastered, we moved onto other more complicated feats.

Currently, he knows "An-dae!", which would be equivalent of saying, "Don’t do that!" or "No!". Not sure why we chose to teach him that command in Korean, but it might have been before my wife was comfortable enough with Yoshi just doing "dog things". She was convinced he was constantly going to urinate when he attempted to come into the house and was always shouting "An-dae!"  when he wasn’t on the papers. I just cleaned up the messes and if I ever caught him doing something wrong would clap my hands. It startles him and gets the same "pay attention to me" reaction. This also works when he is jumping, biting, or doing anything else naughty, like trying to make some sweet loving to a pillow in the room.

The most impressive trick my wife has taught him is to wait for permission before eating. We keep the food in a closet, and when we go outside and open the door, 90% of the time it is to feed him. Before we trained him, he would come into the closet sniffing around. Now he patiently waits for the door to close and gives you a look while sitting. We usually make him wait, and if he sits up before we say, "Ma-ma!", we make him sit back down again. "Ma-ma!" is Korean for the command "eat" to a young child. Often I would hear kindergarten students say this to their dolls, but never had any reason to use this before I had a dog.
He also knows "Il-ee-wa", which means "come over here".  Again, this is something you would say to children.

He’s being taught the Korean word for hand for "shake". When I want him to go to his pillow to stay for some reason, I’ve been teaching him "Chib" which means "House". Right now his response to seeing me get out the snacks by running over to his pillow. The only other things I’ve attempted to teach him in English haven’t sunk in yet. He knows that when I put my two fist together over his head that means that I want him to jump. When I say, "Jump," when doing the same command I get no reaction. He also doesn’t know how to "Fetch" yet. When you toss a toy, he simply runs up, touches it with his nose, then runs back wondering why you don’t have anything else to throw.

To be honest, it’s just as easy for him to learn short Korean commands as it is for me to take the time to teach him something in English. It doesn’t matter for me either way what language he understands. Learning the commands myself isn’t that difficult either. Whoever takes care of him while we are on vacation would probably appreciate that he knew Korean, as it’s likely that one of my Korean family members would be given the duty of watching him.