Bright dogs can learn new words as fast as toddlers
“GENIUS” dogs learn new words after hearing them just four times, a study has found – making them as quick on the uptake as threeyear-old children.
Dogs that have a talent for remembering verbal cues can rapidly expand their vocabulary simply by playing with their owners, according to the research.
Whisky (4), a female border collie from Norway, and Vicky Nina (9), a female Yorkshire terrier from Brazil, were able to fetch the correct toy after being shown the object and told its name four times despite no formal training.
Scientists say these intuitive dogs are able to learn new words at the same
speed as toddlers aged two and three.
Whisky and Vicky Nina were selected for the study as they had previously demonstrated knowledge of the names of many different toys. Whisky, in particular, is known on social media for being able to recognise and fetch dozens of different objects.
Dr Claudia Fugazza, from Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, said: “We wanted to know under which conditions the gifted dogs may learn novel words.
“To test this, we exposed Whisky and Vicky Nina to the new words in two different conditions, during an exclusion-based task and in a social playful context with their owners.”
The exclusion-based task involved the dogs being faced with seven toys that they were familiar with, plus a new toy that they had not encountered before.
They were both able to fetch the new toy when their owner used its name, suggesting that they had used a process of elimination to identify the unfamiliar object.
The social task involved the owner saying the name of a new toy while using it to play with their dog.
Whisky fetched the correct toy in 70pc of cases. Vicky Nina did even better with 75pc, said the study in the journal Scientific Reports.
“Importantly, in both conditions the dogs heard the name of the new toy only four times,” said Dr Fugazza.
To test whether most dogs would be as successful as Whisky and Vicky Nina at learning new words, 20 others were tested – but none understood the new toy names.
This confirms that only very few dogs that are especially gifted are able to learn words quickly in the absence of formal training, the scientists concluded.
Previous research in the US has suggested that women have a special role in building bonds with dogs.
“Humans were more likely to regard dogs as a type of person if the dogs had a special relationship with women,” said Jaime Chambers, from Washington State University. (© Telegraph Media Group Limited 2021).