highly recommend "careful" as a communicative phrase with animals if you are a delicate and sickly cripple, invalid, convalescent etc who can be harmed with actions that would otherwise be normal. our cat has gotten very good at this and it has prevented many injuries but she also recognizes it as a warning of potentially causing harm through her effect on the environment. my pillow positioning is very fragile and if she is excited and rowdy she may walk on them but when warned with careful she will back right off and may even calm down slightly as she remembers her actions have consequences. she is especially good at recognizing cause and effect and also has a very high affinity for recognizing pain or injury in her people, so this may be more difficult in animals who don't have those traits to the extent she does, but it's been very helpful for me