‘Genius’ dogs can learn new words just by listening

One of the benefits and responsibilities of owning a dog is playing with it. Not only is it fun, but it is one of the main ways they learn.

Dogs are social animals; They understand the world through visual cues and can sense emotions through smell. And they generally build their vocabulary by interacting with their owners, usually choosing words that are meaningful to them: think “walk” or “fetch.”

But researchers have identified that a small number of dogs may be “talented word learners,” meaning they can learn more than 100 words.

Study, published in journal ScienceSheni Dror, a post-doctoral researcher at ELTE University in Budapest and the Veterinary University of Vienna, investigated how many toys a dog could name – and found that this number “seems to be infinite, tied only to their owner’s patience and how much space they have for toys in their home”. Quirks and quarks.

But she says this is a very rare trait, adding that the team found about 40 to 45 dogs with the ability to learn more than 100 words during a seven-year search around the world. Those dogs could understand 200 to 300 toy names, and they said previous studies had found one dog that could understand more than 1,000 words — again, all the names of toys.

The skill is not breed-specific, Dror said, although most of the talented dogs were Border Collies.

“We have seen breeds that were not bred to work with humans, for example, Pekingese, Shih Tzu. We have seen some Yorkshire terriers that are able to do that.”

Dogs gifted from Canada

One of those extraordinary dogs is Miso, a seven-year-old border collie from Oshawa, Ontario.

His owner, Veronica Suen, said that since Miso was their first dog, they had no idea the puppy’s intelligence was out of the ordinary.

“When he was a puppy, I was trying to do other things, but he wanted to play all the time. So I would just, in my lazy way, be like, ‘Oh, can you get me a ball? Can you get me a Frisbee?'” she said. “And he would do that – and I, I didn’t think it was anything special.”

But then Suen met Dror Genius Dog Challenge Online, which included a callout for puppies who could identify the names of 10 or more toys.

“I was like, ‘Wait a minute, my dog ​​can do a lot more than that.'”

Miso participated in four studies with Dror over several years. Suen said that she now names each of her toys in a way that both she and Miso can remember. For example, a Pikachu doll is called a “Pikachu” and a toy shaped like a croissant is called a “croissant”.

Miso can understand at least 200 words; At this point, Suen said, he stopped counting.

Unlike the stereotypical Border Collie – which is known for having a feisty and energetic personality – the Miso is quite calm.

Dror said of his performance in the study, “I think Miso was one of the few dogs we had that was always calm and always chose his toys very carefully.”

Suen said her other border collie, Mayu, is nothing like Miso — she’s high-energy, athletic and “sadly, tries to chase cars.”

Then there’s Remy, a five-year-old mini goldendoodle from Pickering, Ontario, who participated in the study — and was Valerie Lo’s first pet.

“The first week (at home) she was potty trained and she knew all her tricks… so I’m like, ‘Am I really good or is she really smart?'” Lo recalled.

Remy was a pandemic-stricken pup, so Lo, a teacher, worked from home most of her first two years — and the dog showed early on that she could learn words by listening in Lo’s virtual classes.

“I was teaching my students about shapes, and we were talking about triangles and circles. And Remy has a toy called ‘Triangle.'” And every time I said triangle, she would come over and get her triangle for me. And I say, ‘Well, that must be a coincidence.'”

language test

In Dror’s latest study, he worked with 14 gifted dogs.

In it, they tried to measure word recall, controlling for the fact that dogs are excellent at picking up visual cues from humans. So, the toys were placed in a separate room, and the dog was asked to choose a specific toy while the researchers waited to see if they chose the correct toy.

“I’ve been watching these dogs for many years and have noticed how attentive they are to their owners,” Dror said, adding that he’s not surprised they can learn words just by listening. “And I’ve also had some owners tell me really funny stories, for example, they were talking about ordering pizza and the dog came into the room with a toy called Pizza.”

However, she was surprised by how quickly and how well they learned; Sometimes being able to recognize a toy only after hearing it talked about four times.

“They made 100 percent the right choices and were completely confident in what they were doing,” he said.

Studies show that this type of learning is similar to that of an 18 to 24 month old child. But Dror says there’s a key difference between human development and the development seen in dogs — dogs are learning words, not language.

“We cannot generalize about this specific ability to learn language, because language is a very complex system,” he said. “It’s not only the ability to understand that certain things have names, but it’s also the way in which these things interact with each other… So the fact that dogs are performing in the same way as children doesn’t mean they’re thinking the same thoughts as children.”

Even among humans, language development is not one-size-fits-all.-Andrea Breen

Although Andrea Breen, an associate professor at the University of Guelph, says there has been some research comparing the development of young children and dogs, previous studies have focused more on other markers like attention, gaze and reaction — but not language.

Although Dror’s study, in which Breen did not participate, found similar behavior between children and dogs, it does not mean their brains learn or work the same way, he said.

“Even though they’re showing behavior that is superficially similar to what we see with children, perhaps their thinking is different, (the) learning mechanisms are different,” said Breen, who is also director of the FIDO Research Laboratory, which studies dog-human interactions.

Dogs learn best when it involves something meaningful to them, Breen said, like the toys Dror used in his tests.

“I think one of the things that’s good to keep in mind is that the dogs in this sample were highly motivated by the objects in the testing context – they were interested, they were paying attention, they wanted those toys.”

How to develop grooming skills in your dog

The best way to help your dog learn is to just spend time with them, says Breen, because they’re very social creatures.

“Do silly things with your dog that you enjoy – or don’t do anything at all. Just sit on the floor and pet your dog,” she said. “The dogs next to us are not going to do the things that these dogs (in the study) did, but they’re probably a lot more capable than we give them credit for.”