What’s Polish for ‘sit’?

BILINGUAL pooch Cent explores his Polish roots with RSPCA worker Joanne Hilton

WHEN Cent failed to respond to simple commands such as “sit”, “heel” and “stay”, RSPCA staff thought they had a disobedient dog on their hands.

But the two-year-old collie had an altogether different reason for ignoring their requests — the dog only understands Polish.

Animal welfare officers at the Rhodes Bank Centre contacted Cent’s owners — who gave him up because they could no longer look after him — to ask about his bad behaviour.

And that’s when they found out that the pet had only ever been spoken to in Polish.

Staff looked up Polish words in a bid to bond with Cent, but their pronunciation must have been off as the collie continued to ignore commands.

So they were forced to go back to the drawing board and teach Cent simple commands from scratch in English.

Receptionist Joanne Hilton said: “He loves playing with his ball and is a big fan of treats so we’ve used them to start teaching him basic commands.”

The bilingual pooch has picked up basic English in less than a month and is now responding to staff.

Cent is a very lively and loving dog who will happily live with children over 10 years old.

If you would like to adopt him call the RSPCA Rhodes Bank Centre on 0161-624 4725.