Dogs Who Eavesdrop: A Few "Gifted" Canines Can Learn New Toy Names Just by Overhearing

A recent study reports that your dog may not just hear you talking. In a few rare cases, they may actually learn from it.

An international group of researchers found that a group of unusually word-savvy dogs can learn new object names just by overhearing their owners’ conversations. The researchers compared this level of learning to 18- to 23-month-old children. The team calls these animals “Gifted Word Learners”: Dogs that already know labels for many objects (mostly toys), not just action cues like “sit” or “down.”

In the paper, Miso, a 6-year-old border collie from Canada, is said to know about 200 toy names, while Bryn, an 11-year-old border collie from the UK, is reported to know around 100. Dogs like these seem to pick up words during ordinary play with their owners.

The question the researchers wanted to pin down is whether dogs can learn a brand-new word when no one is speaking to them.

“Our findings show that the socio-cognitive processes enabling word learning from overheard speech are not uniquely human,” says lead scientist Shany Dror, a Eötvös Loránd University fellow. “Under the right conditions, some dogs present behaviors strikingly similar to those of young children.”

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