Most dog owners are aware that their pooch is smart enough to know a few choice phrases—“walkies,” for instance, or, perhaps more likely, “time for dinner.” Some particularly intelligent canines can even identify more than 100 words. And incredibly, a few “genius” doggies may be able to learn words not by being taught but purely by eavesdropping on human conversations.
In a new study published in Science on Thursday, researchers at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary found that a small group of “gifted” dogs can learn the names of new toys just by overhearing their owners talk about the items. For comparison, that is about the same language learning skills as an 18-month-old child.
The researchers asked dog owners to have a conversation with another person in their household and name-drop two new toys in front of their pets but without directly addressing the animals. Afterward the owners placed the pair of toys in a separate room alongside a handful of others and asked their dogs to retrieve one of the novel playthings. The dogs were able to pick out the new toys after overhearing their owners just as well as if they were shown these toys and then told to find the objects.
On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
“With some of the dogs, it’s like they had no doubt about what they were supposed to be doing,” says Shany Dror, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Clever Dog Lab at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, and a co-author on the study. “They would just go into the room, straight to the toy that they knew [was] the new toy and [then brought] it immediately.”
“The fact that they can hear and overhear people passing an item back and forth and labeling it—and then pick up on that word—means that they are attending to that conversation. They’re able to parse out the name of the label and attach it correctly to that item,” says Heidi Lyn, a comparative psychologist and an associate professor at the University of South Alabama, who was not involved with the study. “That’s a pretty sophisticated attentional and cognitive leap that they’re making.”
Similar skills have been seen in other animals, such as apes and parrots. The new research offers proof that some dogs can learn some words even when they are not addressed directly by their owners, says Nameera Akhtar, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was also not involved in the study. Still, she caveats, the dogs involved in the study were particularly smart, so perhaps not all pooches will be so astute.
It’s unclear how exactly such “gifted” dogs learn or why some dogs seem so much more able to pick up new words and phrases than others.
Dror, who recently lost her dog of 15 years, a schipperke named Mitos, says she hopes the new study will help dog owners better appreciate their canine companions’ ability to heed social cues.
“I think we should all try to pay more attention to the way we interact around our dogs and with our dogs,” she says, “the way we stand, the way we look at them, the way we say our words.”