Does Your Pet Understand What “No” Means?

no
nō/
Determiner
not any.
"There is no excuse."

Exclamation
used to give a negative response.
"Is anything wrong?” “No.”

Opposite:
yes

Adverb
not at all; to no extent.
"They were no more able to perform the task than I was"

What we mean when we say “no” to our pets:

Don’t do that. 
Stop doing that. 
Don’t touch that. 
Drop that. 
Get off of there. 
Get down. 
Be quiet. 
Stop chewing on that. 
Stop licking.
Leave that alone. 
Stop scratching. 
Stop sniffing that.
Don’t bite.
Don’t pull.
Stop bothering me…
As you can see, “no” is very much dependent on context. 

Our animals are continually behaving — usually more than one behavior at a time.

Consider a puppy who is growling at a person who wants to take away the slipper they are currently holding between their paws, salivating on, and chewing. The owner tells the puppy, “No!”.

No what? Should the puppy stop holding the slipper? Should they stop salivating on the slipper? Should they stop chewing the slipper? Should they stop growling? How is the puppy to determine which behavior they are supposed to stop, or which combination of behaviors? And for how long?

The truth is, our animals don’t really know what “no” means, regardless of how often we say it, and they consequently stop whatever they’re are doing. Your pet may stop what they’re doing in the moment because they feel threatened or intimidated by you, or because you startled them. Still, they are likely going to either go right back to the behavior once the immediate threat has passed or they’ll return to the behavior when you’re not around. 

There’s no moral compass that tells the animal that “no” means what they’re doing is “wrong,” and they shouldn’t ever do it. Basically, “no” is a useless word when it comes to our animals. It may make us feel productive in the moment, but it’s not giving our animal any real information. More than likely, they’re merely reacting to your tone of voice and body language. You could say “purple” in place of “no” and still achieve the same results. 

Instead of uselessly yelling “no” at your pets and scaring them into a momentary behavioral pause, a better strategy would be to redirect them onto more appropriate behaviors and prevent the offending behavior from reoccurring. For example, one might replace the slipper with an appropriate chew toy and put all shoes and slippers away where the puppy cannot reach them. The more the puppy successfully chews on the appropriate chew items, the less likely they are to grab the slippers when you reintroduce them to the now-older puppy’s environment.

There are a tremendous amount of undesirable behaviors that can be avoided entirely by planning ahead and setting your pets up for success. When your pets are doing something you don’t want them to do, usually it’s not difficult to distract them with something else, without calling too much attention to what they’re currently doing.

Non-events are much easier to resolve than events you call attention to by shouting “no” at your pets.