Ask Lemmy

I taught my pet rock to "stay" in 1988.

It hasn't moved since.

"After you".

My dog would walk right on my heels and nearly trip me. Taught her "after you" kind of accidentally and now she goes ahead a distance and then waits for me if I'm not fast enough.

It wasn't a command, but I distinctively remember the first time my cat growled at me for picking him up and I set him down immediately. Now it's his way of telling me to let him down whenever. So I guess he taught me the command instead!

Not a command perse, but my dog has learned that "hey Google, what's the temperature outside" usually means a walk is coming and gets excited.

“Car” When we are walking in our neighborhood (there are no sidewalks) I’ll say “car” and he’ll move into the grass area when a vehicle approaches.

Wife taught our dog to crawl.

She was trying to teach the dog to lay down and stay while she backed away with the treat. Our dog figured that if she kept her belly on the floor and crawled over to the treat it should be fine...

So my wife said "Good crawl!", and kept working on it with the dog. Now the dog crawls on command.

I heard you could train your dog to tell you when they need out by putting a bell on the door. I didn’t have a bell, but did have empty beer can and random nuts and bolts.

She learned to knock over my beer if she wants out.

Kinda somehow trained my dogs to expertly remove socks from feet.. Started as a puppy with an interest in toe biting, decided to try to mould it into something positive. Lots of "OWW"s later, she will delicately nibble the tip of your sock to seperate a bit of fabric from the toe, then grab on, and tug straight backwards (you gotta point your toe to help her out) and voila! Sock removed.

Thought it was dumb but 7 years later, my pregnant wife thinks it's the fucking bees knees

My cat has learned how… delicious? ear wax is. I was itching my ear once, she started licking my finger, and now if I even raise my right hand near my head she flips out and runs up into my space just in case it’s ear wax time.

Note I don’t actually have a ton of ear wax or feed it to her, but something about my finger after I scratch my ear just drives her crazy.

Seriously though my ears are clean 😂

My dogs have learned if they sit up and beg and spin I can't fucking resist it and will give them a treat. The little fuckers taught me a trick.

My cat Siegfrieda thinks that "bitte" (please) means "free petting". That's because I usually tell her bitte when she's taking too long to obey the command. For example...

• Zizi! Komm nach Hause! (Zizi, come home!)
• [Siegfrieda ignores me to chase the shadow of a butterfly]
• Frieda, komm nach Hause. Bitte. (Frieda, come home. Please.
• Prrrwwwwn? [runs in my direction]

The beep one of my monitors makes at power off (at the end of my workday) catalyzes my three cats into immediate action. They could be passed out or hidden, and ignore me when I walk by (I've tested this), but the moment they hear that "beep-chime" they materialize.

They know it means I'm available for cuddles and snacks. Confuses the hell out of them on the occasional weekend when I take a Zoom call for one of my volunteer gigs. I'll also use it to summon them when one vanishes for too long and I need to make sure they didn't get out.

Cat gets treats when the dishwasher starts, not sure if I trained him or if he trained me but that is what happens 100% of the time or else he gets loud.

My cat loves riding around on my shoulder, and also loves food. He figured out that he has a better than average chance of getting treats after a shoulder ride. The counter in the bathroom is the highest in the house, where he can get the closest to my shoulder. So I apparently taught my cat to come running when he hears the toilet seat go up. Does it every. Single. Time.

My cat blesses people when they sneeze

I taught my half Maltese half shih tzu the command move over. Every time I'd take her for rides she'd sit in my lap and if I needed to go around a corner I'd say move over and put her in the passenger seat. Now if she's in my spot on the couch she'll growl if I try to move her. But say move over and she'll go

We put a battery powered doorbell on the door leading outside. My puppy Veronica quickly caught on but mostly rang it when excited rather than when she needed to go out.

But about six months ago it kicked in what it's for and she'll surprise us by going across the house to hit the bell and tell us she means business.

So it wasn't exactly accidental but took a year.

Also same as yours, "Go get your sister." She'll go try and figure out what her older sister is up to and bring her back.

Not quite a command, but I seem to have confused my oldest cat so that he thinks "excuse me" is a threat. He'll be blocking a doorway, and if I say "excuse me" as I try to pass, he hisses and possibly swats, but if I just silently try to squeeze past, we're all good. Currently working to undo that one.

One of my cats will headbutt me if I say "headbutt", he's like a pokemon or something. Hard enough that I can hear a thunk.

My dog now knows she is "the dog". Any time we say the word, she starts listening.

She picks things up that I never imagined a dog could understand.

"High five" instead of "paw" for two dogs which wasn't the accident. The accident is they learned to associate high five with wanting something. When they want pets, food, bones, or toys they obsessively high five at you.

My cat does it now too. Maybe they learned it from the cat who saw they got treats for high fives. My wife hates it. I think its hilarious.

We lived in a house with a bunch of roommates when we got our dog, and at some point "fuck off" became "go lie down on your bed and get outta my space"... So now if "go lie down" isn't taking, then "fuck off" works...

I have one cat that gets several meds that I mix in baby food. I also have two other cats that need to be distracted from the cat getting the delicious (hurk) chicken baby food. So i toss treats across the kitchen to get them far away. I started saying “READY?” right before I would start tossing treats. So now as soon as I say ready, they “go long” and run to the far side of the kitchen to wait for their treat toss.

We accidentally made our cat yell when we point at her. Not even sure how it happened tbh; some combo of squirt-bottle-get-off-the-counter and very half-assed start to clicker training. At least we have a goofy party trick when we have people over I guess?

My wife and I get up at different times so we each have our own alarms. She gets up first and feeds the cats.

When my alarm goes off? No reaction.

When her alarm goes off? OMFG...

For a while he learned that "this is the last one" meant we were about to stop playing fetch and he'd pretend to have noticed something odd or been distracted to avoid bringing the ball back and having it taken away. We worked through that one with some treats, so now "this is the last one" means "treat upcoming".

We air dry our clothes on a balcony he doesn't often get to access and he gets to walk out with us when we're doing that and bark at birds and neighboring cats (which is why he isn't allowed out there all the time). He's learned to set up camp next to the door when he hears the washing machine beep after a wash cycle. Also when he sees us grab the container we use for the laundry, in case we're about to go pick up a dry load.

I can yell Cheese Wrapper at the dog park, and mine will come running.

Both of my cat's think their names are "Hungry?"

There were two.

1. Every time he farted it was awful so we'd shoo him out of the room. Eventually, he'd immediately walk out of the room right AFTER he farted.

2. We'd end the day watching TV in the living room. Eventually he learned that the click of the TV meant it was time to go to bed, so any time the TV got turned off, he'd get up and go into his bed in our bedroom.

When my GF started visiting she commented on how cute my cat was for quietly meowing for food. She said she had a cat that would rake his claws across the wall to get her attention, and demonstrated this just once in front of my cat. That same night the little guy started doing that whenever he wanted anything after just seeing her do it once.

my cat thinks "up" and "down" both mean "get off my lap".

she also recognizes that when I sit and talk to myself (voice chat) is perfect petting and cuddles time. she's well known to my therapist and team because of zoom meetings.

and both guinea pigs and the cat have all decided that we do cuddles about 830pm. I thought it was "after work and dinner, sometime before bed". but the number of times I look up to see what the fuss is, and it's 830 and all 3 are looking at me expectantly... I assume they figure the time by daylight, because it's not consistent when I get home.

My cat thinks the sound of my Playstation powering down means "time for bed". He's not wrong...

My doggo will normally follow verbal commands for sit/down/shake without much issue. But sometimes he gets too excited or obstinate and doesn't want to do it even if I've said so a few times. At some point, I inadvertently taught him that me putting my hand(s) on my hip(s) is the "Ok, we're not moving on until you listen" gesture.

I make him sit before he eats, and if he isn't sitting, I'll just put my hand on my hip and he immediately plants his ass against the floor, tail wagging. He also knows the question, "Are you begging?" if he's too close to someone eating, and he'll put his head down and slowly skulk away for 5 minutes before sneakily returning to his previous position, hoping for scraps. 😆

My cat and I slow blink at each other a lot. She usually wants to eat breakfast on the catio, but it's not fully screened in yet, so I would prefer she ate inside as it attracts other cats and sometimes ravens. I stand in the doorway and ask her to come in, but if she slow blinks and then keeps her eyes closed while still pointing her face at me I know she's not coming in. That's my signal to put down the damn cat food woman, it's al fresco today!

Did I teach her "eyes closed for outside breakfast" or did she teach me "give up when I squinch my eyes closed at you"?

Border Collie — go get mom. She’d go and find the now ex-wife.

And “Attack!” She’d just stand there and bark like mad.

The dog was sweet; and your biggest problem was she roll on her back and pee on the both of you.

With my last dog, I would reward him with extra treats when the cat was also in the kitchen. The cat figured out he got treats whenever the dog and I were in the kitchen and now just joins me in the kitchen (on his stool) whenever I go there.

Not really a command but I accidentally taught my dog to play fight me whenever I get home, because I did it when he was a puppy. So now it's like Kato and Clouseau every time. Even when I'm super tired.

Not specifically a command, but my dog knows the sound of me taking my headset off. She figured out that me taking my headset off means I'm getting up, which means there's a chance I'll let her outside.

My dog responds to swear words by doing the kinds stuff you see emotional support dogs do in videos- press on your chest, give you kisses, nuzzle your face, etc.

Except she's small, blind, and a bit... intense, so she kinda launches into you if you're sitting, with some intense affection.

IDK why. I guess we don't swear very often, ao when we do, its special, and we swear with enough gusto for her to think we're very, very upset.

I have no idea how my dog learned this, but whenever anyone says “Window”, he rushes to the closest window and stares outside and barks.

Holding empty hands out and saying "no more" so they stop looking for treats.

Also, "this is people cheese; not doggie cheese"

And then the same for the cat, who likes cheese.

Cat screams constantly when he wants anything and he’s so damn cute we always give in. So it’s just screaming to wake up and feed me, screaming to scratch his bum while he eats (he LOVES that shit), screaming for attention, screaming to go outside. He’s so annoying but god damn do I love him.

I can make my husky howl by saying "space camp."