Are Some Dogs Geniuses at Learning Words?

Nalani with her toys.

Source: Sonja De Laat Spierings, used with permission.

Every dog is a good boy or girl. But it turns out that a few of them may also be geniuses. According to a new study, some uniquely gifted dogs can learn up to 12 new toy names in just one week — and remember the new names for at least two months. The tests were part of the Genius Dog Challenge, a social media campaign aimed at locating more dogs with knowledge of object names.

Precocious Pups

The project started several years ago, when Claudia Fugazza and Ádám Miklósi, head of the research team at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, met a dog named Whisky, whose owner claimed she knew the names of her toys. Although skeptical at first, the researchers tested Whisky, and she passed with flying colors, demonstrating an impressive vocabulary of object names.

This inspired the researchers to attempt to train dogs to learn the names of objects. They spent three months training 36 dogs — with very little success. Even after intensive training, most dogs were not able to learn multiple object names. The results seemed to suggest that this is a rare ability among dogs.

Shany Dror, a doctoral student in the research group and lead author of the new study, compared these dogs with large vocabularies to exceptionally gifted humans, like Einstein or Mozart, who showed enormous talent in one field. Dror said:

Looking at these gifted dogs, it is hard to say what makes them different from other dogs. I have met with a lot of other dogs that are also motivated to learn and attentive to their owners. And yet, they don’t seem to learn. We don’t know what makes these dogs different; only that the difference is very, very clear once you try to teach them.

Putting Genius Dogs to the Test

For more than two years, Dror and her colleagues searched worldwide for dogs with an existing vocabulary of object names. In addition to Whisky (who hails from Norway), they managed to find five more: Max (Hungary), Gaia (Brazil), Nalani (Netherlands), Squall (United States), and Rico (Spain). These six dogs all knew the names of more than 28 toys, with some knowing more than 100. They demonstrated this knowledge by successfully retrieving each toy upon the owner’s request when the toy was placed in a different room, out of the owner’s view, among other named toys.

Interestingly, all six of these dogs are border collies. Since this experiment, the team has identified a handful of other “genius” dogs. Border collies are well-represented in this group, but it also includes a German shepherd, a Pekinese, a mini Australian shepherd, and a few mutts. Overall, it seems that the ability to learn object names is rare and present only in a few gifted individuals, most of which, but not all, appear to be border collies.

Max selecting a toy.

Source: Cooper Photo, used with permission.

For the initial six gifted dogs study, Dror and her colleagues asked the owners to teach their dogs the names of six and then 12 new toys in one week. The experiments were conducted in the dogs’ homes using an online video streaming software.

The owners could teach their dogs the new object names however they saw fit. This meant play sessions every day (from half an hour up to two and a half hours) in which the owners interacted with their dogs and the new toys. On the seventh day, the new toys were scattered on the floor, along with several old toys randomly chosen from the dog’s collection of named toys. To control for unconscious cues, the owner sat in a different room, out of view of the array of toys, and asked the dog to retrieve each new toy by pronouncing its name.

In addition, the dogs’ memory of the new objects was tested one month and two months later (with the toys stored in between).

The results were impressive. The gifted dogs were not only able to learn up to 12 new object names in one week, but most also maintained a long-term memory of the names for at least two months.

Canine-Human Communication

Dror said the research team has two main goals. One uses these dogs as a model for learning words and comparing similarities and differences in the way humans and dogs learn words. The other goal is to work with the dogs to understand better how they perceive the world.

Whisky among her toys.

Source: Helge O. Savela, used with permission.

Dogs make good models for studying human behaviors since they evolved and were raised in the human environment. Research shows that dogs appear to be much better at understanding human communication signals than other animals, including great apes and wolves. The domestication process — in which humans specifically selected dogs for their ability to understand human communication — has likely contributed to their superior abilities.

Education Essential Reads

Radical Healing: From the Clinic to the Classroom

The Boy Who Folded: How Hassabis Turned Chess Into a Nobel

Still, Dror cautioned that while dogs, in general, are skilled at understanding human communication, the ability to understand so many different words is uncommon.

“I learned during this study how sensitive dogs are to unconscious visual cues from their owners,” she said. “If dog owners want to improve communication with their dogs, it’s important to pay attention to every little signal you are giving your dog, not only the verbal ones but the nonverbal ones as well.”

Dror said that in our daily interactions with our dogs, they pick up on all sorts of cues from us, both conscious and unconscious. And our dogs are usually so good at this that we are sure they understand exactly what we are saying.

“It’s only when you take those other aspects of communication out that you realize that when it comes to spoken words, most dogs do not understand as much as we think they do.”

Is Your Dog a Genius?

Dror and her colleagues are continually searching for more gifted dogs. They encourage dog owners who believe their dogs know multiple toy names to contact them through the Genius Dog Challenge site.