Great news for people who like to think of their dogs as their children: a new study suggests that dogs may indeed be similar to an 18-month-old child in one fascinating way.

The study, published in the academic journal Science, found that a certain group of “gifted” dogs can pick up on words relevant to them, just like a young toddler would.

The research suggests that dogs have the neurological capacity to eavesdrop and learn new words when they hear humans talking about something that interests them. (In the case of the study, dog toys.)

“We demonstrated that a small group of Gifted Word Learner dogs, which possess an extensive vocabulary of object labels, can learn new labels by overhearing their owners’ interactions,” the study’s authors wrote.

Such “gifted” pups can learn the name of a new toy even when it is hidden in a bucket, as long as their owner is looking toward the spot where it is.

So it’s not just “fetch” and “good boy” your dog is responding to, said Shany Dror, the study’s lead author and a cognitive scientist at Eötvös Loránd University and the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.

“We already know that all dogs are basically able to learn action labels: things like ‘sit down,’ ‘stay’ but it seems like there’s only a small group of dogs that are able to learn object labels, with things like ‘ball,’ ‘rope,’ ‘ring’ or ‘toy,’” Dror told........

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