Stimulus Control is a fundamental component in training, be it animals or children, because it allows us to put behaviours on cue. If a behaviour always happens in response to a specific cue, such as 'Robbie, Sit', and only happens when I say 'Robbie , Sit', and not when I say 'Robbie, Come', or "Robbie, stop-it' the behaviour is under stimulus control.

Once Robbie does the behaviour only under that specific cue, and not under others, the cue is a discriminative stimulus, now known as an SD . Now we can move into the sound patterns of SDs. 

Patricia McConnell Ph. D, a genius behaviourist,  was so interested in SDs that she made this her dissertation. She analyzed the sound patterns of the commands used by shepherds working their dogs on sheep. Her results showed that regardless of the country of origin and the language of the shepherd, the commands they used for specific behaviours had similar sounds and patterns. They tended to use short, rapidly repeating, rising notes for commands which increased the dog's activity and long, continuous, descending notes for commands which decreased the dog's activity. To find out if this pattern had a reason Patricia Patricia then created different sounds that matched these same patterns and played the sounds to border collie puppies at various times of the day. Sure enough, when the puppies heard the low, continuous noise, they tended to settle down, and when they heard the short rising noise, they tended to move around. This shows that dogs are genetically predisposed to behave in certain ways to certain sounds (Reid, P.  1996; 98).

But how does this help us train our dogs? When I want my dog to do an action, I use short, high pitched words such as 'come', 'sit', or 'strut' for heelwork.   When I want him to settle down I use long, stretched out words like 'settle', 'down' (stretched out in a deeper voice) or even 'lie-down'. There is a specific reason why 'go' and 'settle' are pronounced the ways that they are.

So it is really true: "it's not what you say but how you say it".

Taken from Reid, Pamela, Excel-erated Learning: Explaining how dogs learn and how best to teach them.  James and Kenneth Publishers, CA.  1996: 98)  A fantastic book well worth the read.

Copyright by Monique Anstee. May be reprinted without permission 1) if used in its entirety without editing; and 2) provided copyright notice remains in place.