If you have to spell out ‘W-A-L-K’ to keep your dog from bouncing off the walls, scientists say you are not alone.
New research shows that some brainy pooches can learn new words just by eavesdropping on their owners’ conversations.
So-called ‘gifted word learner’ dogs can memorise the names of hundreds of different toys by playing with their owners.
Now, scientists have shown that dogs can repeat this impressive feat just as well when their owners aren’t talking to them directly.
To do this, dogs need to monitor their owner’s gaze and attention, pick up on communicative cues, and extract words from a continuous stream of speech.
Until now, scientists had thought this ability was something unique to humans.
However, this new study shows some dogs have language skills similar to those of an 18 to 23-month-old toddler.
Lead author Dr Shany Dror, of the University for Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, says: ‘Under the right conditions, some dogs present behaviours strikingly similar to those of young children.’
Scientists have found that some smart dogs, like Harvey the border collie from the UK (pictured), are able to learn new words just by eavesdropping on their owners
Scientists have recently begun to uncover the incredible skills of rare, gifted word learner dogs.
Studies have shown that certain pets have unique abilities to acquire and memorise names for different objects.
Some dogs are even able to sort their toys into different conceptual categories, such as toys that are for pulling and toys that are for fetching, without being taught which toy is which.
However, in all previous studies on gifted word learners, researchers focused on how owners could teach their dogs words by directly communicating with them.
In this study, published in the journal Science, Dr Dror and her co-authors looked at whether dogs could still learn words from indirect conversations.
The researchers tested 10 gifted dogs’ learning skills in two different situations.
In the ‘addressed condition’, owners introduced new toys and labelled them repeatedly while interacting with the dog.
Meanwhile, in the ‘overheard condition’, the dogs watched passively while their owners talked with another person about the toy without addressing the dog at all.
So-called ‘gifted word learner’ dogs can memorise the names of hundreds of different toys by playing with their owners or by passively listening to their conversations. Pictured: Miso, a 6-year-old male border collie from Canada, who knows the names of about 200 toys
In each case, the dogs were only given eight minutes to learn the name of the new toy over a few brief sessions.
The toys were then placed in a different room, and the dogs’ owners asked them to retrieve the toy by name.
In both situations, researchers found that these gifted pups were able to find their toys with a striking degree of accuracy.
Across 20 trials, dogs retrieved the correct toy 80 per cent of the time in the addressed condition and 100 per cent of the time in the overheard conditions.
This shows that some talented dogs are just as good at learning new words by eavesdropping as they are in direct communication.
In a third trial, the gifted pets further demonstrated their impressive language skills by showing that they could memorise new objects even when they weren’t visible.
Owners showed the dogs a new toy, then placed the object in a bucket, only naming the toy once it was out of sight.
This creates a separation in time between seeing the object and hearing the name, which should have made it much harder for dogs to create the connection.
Scientists say that these talented dogs’ learning abilities are on par with those of an 18 to 23-month-old toddler. Pictured: Shira, a nine-year-old rescue dog, who knows the names of over 300 dog toys
Despite this discontinuity, most of the gifted dogs successfully learned the new labels and retrieved their new toys.
However, the researchers say that not all pet owners can expect their own furry friends to have the same abilities.
Dr Dror says: ‘These dogs provide an exceptional model for exploring some of the cognitive abilities that enabled humans to develop language. But we do not suggest that all dogs learn in this way – far from it.’
While all dogs are excellent at learning commands such as ‘sit’ or ‘stay’, the capacity to learn words for objects is much less common.
Gifted word learners appear to be extremely rare among the general population of pets, and scientists are still trying to work out what makes a dog so talented.
Experts currently believe that these skills come from a combination of innate abilities and life experiences.
This means your family Labrador isn’t likely to start expanding its vocabulary any time soon.
