In a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Science, Israeli researcher Shany Dror, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, found that super-smart canines, known as Gifted Word Learner dogs, can pick up new words from eavesdropping on their owners’ conversations, similar to 18-month-old human toddlers.

“We all know dogs can excel at learning actions like ‘sit’ or ‘down,’” said Dror, 37, speaking to The Times of Israel in a teleconference call. “But few studies have been done on dogs’ knowledge of object labels.”

Dror’s research on 41 GWL dogs shows they have unique social cognitive skills, enabling them to interpret humans’ voices, gazes, and gestures, she said, noting that humans first developed an ability to understand complex social interactions, and “only later used this complex understanding to develop language.”

“The fact that this skill exists in a species that does not have language suggests that the skill itself predates language,” Dror said. “The research helps us understand how language learning may have evolved.”

The researchers worked with 10 dogs from around the world, including border collies, a border collie rescue mix, and a Labrador.

They first asked the dog owners to introduce two new toys to each dog for one minute while repeating the toy’s name and letting the dog play with it for several days.

In the second phase, instead of introducing a new toy to the dog directly, family members passed the toy back and forth, all the while saying its name but without interacting with their dog.

For both experiments, the canines heard the name of each new toy for a total of only eight minutes during a series of brief exposure sessions. The researchers then tested whether the dog had indeed learned the toys’ names. The toys were placed in a different room. The owner then asked the dog to fetch a certain toy, saying, for example, “Can you bring Teddy?”

The dog then scampered into the room where there was an assortment of toys to pick out the specific toy. Overall, the pups had 90% accuracy in bringing toys they had........

© The Times of Israel