Dogs can’t talk, but after 23,000 years of living with humans, they seem to be able to understand some of our vocabulary. For example, when you say “sit down” or “let’s eat“, the dogs were able to immediately react, in less than 1 second.
Some vocabulary and situations are more difficult, such as when you say “who’s that”, the dogs may run to the door because they know a visitor is coming. Some dogs can even remember the names of their neighbors.
And what if training? Previous studies have shown that a dog’s ability to learn vocabulary is comparable to that of a child. Specifically, in 2004, researchers trained a Border Collie to remember 200 words for different toys such as: “ball”, “stuffed animal”.
In 2011, another Border collie demonstrated the ability to remember up to 1,000 words. Some exceptionally intelligent dogs can even learn new words after just a few times of hearing them.
But those can be superhuman animals in the canine world. What about your pet dog? On average, how many words can a typical dog remember?
Scientists are planning to develop a vocabulary test for dogs. It can help us find talented dogs, serving many tasks such as investigating, solving crimes or simply becoming an obedient and obedient pet.
Dogs can understand an average of 89 human words
In a study published in the journal Applied Animal Behavioral Science, scientists found that dogs can respond to an average of 89 human words or phrases consistently. This shows that they understand what we say.
The findings came after an online survey of 165 dog owners of different breeds and ages. The scientists gave each dog owner a list of 172 words.
This is a list that pediatricians give out to parents to check their babies’ language abilities. But this time, it was used to test the dogs.
Owners were asked to rate the dog’s response to certain words and phrases on a scale of 0 to 5:
The lowest score means their dog never reacted or reacted poorly to a word or phrase. While the highest score means that the dog usually does, even when the words are said in different positions, with different tones, and by different people.
Part of a vocabulary test for dogs used in the study.
The results showed that more than 90% of the dogs could recognize 10 basic words or phrases, including: its name, commands.sit down”, “come over”, “be nice”, “lay down”, “stay there”, “wait a minute”, “no”, “okay” and “let it go”.
In contrast, only a rare few dogs can respond consistently and specifically to phrases and words like “wipe your feet”, “come here and talk softly”, “bark grow up”, “deer antlers”, as well as the names of people who are not its owners.
In addition to the infant vocabulary list, dog owners also reported a few more words and commands their pet can understand. Professionally trained dog owners report their dogs’ ability to learn language the best.
On average, police dogs and military dogs used for search and rescue have the ability to understand a vocabulary one and a half times larger than normal dogs. In terms of breed, herding, hound, and terrier show better language abilities.
The worst dogs in the study also learned 15 words, while the best dogs remembered 215 words. On average, the dogs were able to respond consistently to 89 words, of which 78 were from the original list and 11 were added by the owners themselves.
“Dogs play many roles in human life and modern society. They can range from a family member to co-workers trained to be able to work. Their ability to respond to human nonverbal and verbal cues is central to helping dogs fulfill these roles.“, the researchers wrote.
A human language test for dogs?
This study is a first step in helping scientists build a tool to measure dogs’ responses to human language in the future. The scientists say they still need to improve it further, because with many words, dogs can respond to human gestures rather than words.
The infant vocabulary list also has many phrases that are not suitable for dogs, such as “clapping”, “crying”, “brushing teeth”, “on the phone“…So scientists will certainly have to tweak it if they want to test the vocabulary of dogs in a more uniform way.
“With further research in the future, we may be able to develop an effective and economical set of research tools to understand the capabilities of individual dogs.This could help us predict dogs’ potential early, helping to assess their suitability for different tasks.
Who knows, in the future, police departments might have a human language test for dogs who want to serve them. And people who want to buy a pet dog can go to the store and ask: Has this dog passed the family member test?
While waiting for the researchers to complete their test, if you want to test your dog’s language ability on the newborn test, you can download the English pdf here. .
Refer to Sciencealert,
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