If you’re a dog person, start stocking up on treats and bones: the number one holiday of the year is coming up on August 26th: National Dog Day.
I love pretty much all dogs, from that 3-pound Pomeranian puppy who just moved into my neighborhood to Kelly the German shepherd, who polices a friend’s family. But my favorite dog is my own faithful sidekick, Monkey, a 12-and-a-half-year-old rat terrier. Since I got him at 4 months old, Monkey has been high-energy, smart, playful, goofy, and not the type to chew your stuff, even when there’s stuff all over the place because your owner is a slob. Monkey’s been great.
Sure, that day he rolled in some unidentified poop at the park was a tough time for America, but nobody’s perfect.
Among Monkey’s terrific traits is one highly associated with the canine kind: obedience. One of Monkey’s most common positions is sitting at attention, awaiting further instructions, like a loyal, furry butler.
In honor of National Dog Day and our (mostly) obedient friends, here are some synonyms for obedient. I hope you’re compliant, amenable, and docile enough to learn them.
For more words related to (hu)man's best friend, fetch this list: Dog Vocabulary: A Canine Lexicon
compliant
A person or dog (or bear or dolphin for that matter) who is compliant tends to comply, In other words, if you ask them to do something, they tend to do it without much fuss. A compliant dog follows commands. A compliant employee does their job without grumbling. The opposite of compliant is defiant: someone defiant tends to not follow orders, preferring to resist the suggestions and commands of others. Defiant is to defiance as compliant is to compliance, as Dr. Seuss did not write.
amenable
If you’re amenable, you’re agreeable. You’ll go along with others, and you don’t need to have your own way all the time. As an only child, I’m not the most amenable person in the world, but I’m working on it, so give me a break. The original sense of this word was a synonym for answerable in a legal sense: you were amenable if you were liable for a certain law or legal-majig. From there, the meaning evolved to cover people who not only need to answer to the law, but are willing to answer to all sorts of people and things. An amenable dog will fetch a stick or drop a slice of your pizza as soon as you say “Fetch!” or “Hey!”
acquiescent
This is another word for people who tend to say, “Yes, sir” rather than “No way!” To be acquiescent is to be compliant and obedient. If a parent tells a child, “Please take out the garbage,” and the child does it promptly, then the child is acquiescent. If the parent has to ask five times, and it still doesn’t get done, then the child isn’t acquiescent, but is what doctors call “a pain.” When you do as you’re told, you acquiesce. This word has Latin roots and a few other variations, such as acquiescer and acquiescence, which may also be the title of a Jethro Tull album.
tractable
A pooch or person or person who is tractable is easily managed. A tractable dog listens when you say “Leave it!” A tractable student doesn’t throw erasers when the teacher’s back is turned, unless the teacher had asked for a covert eraser war, which is unlikely and a terrible example on my part, sorry. The antonym of this word might be more common. Someone intractable is mega-stubborn and won’t do a darn thing anyone tells them to do.
deferential
Do you say “Yes, sir” or “Yes, ma’am” to older folks out of respect? Then you know how to be deferential. When you defer to someone, you put yourself aside and consider them first. A deferential attitude is often considered a positive thing that shows respect and consideration. But being deferential to someone who doesn’t deserve it isn’t a plus, and a person who is deferential to absolutely everyone probably needs to grow a backbone.
subservient
To be subservient is similar to being deferential, but even more so. If you’ve ever seen a monster movie where there’s an Igor type and a Dr. Frankenstein type, the Igor type is often saying things like, “Yes, master” and “Of course, master.” This is subservient behavior. When you’re subservient, you do a lot of bowing and kneeling and kowtowing before someone else. My dog can be awfully subservient, especially when he wants a treat. He’ll start offering to shake, lie down, sit pretty, turn around, and any other trick or ploy he knows. In people and dogs, subservience often has a hidden motivation.
servile
This close relative of service isn’t usually a compliment. If someone is servile, they’re so eager to serve that they’re practically doing backflips to gain someone’s favor. People who prefer the cool attitude of a cat probably find dogs a bit servile for their tastes.
docile
Dogs tend to be obedient, but they sure aren’t born that way: they have to be taught all sorts of things, such as how to walk on a leash, where to go to the bathroom, and which couches are dog-friendly, if any. But dogs are fairly easy to teach since they are generally docile, a word that comes from Latin root for teaching, docere.
Thank goodness all of the above words describe dogs, most of the time at least. If dogs weren’t docile, deferential, and compliant, they’d just be wolves—and wolves are rarely amenable enough to let you put them in a doggie sweater.
