A Rare Group Of 'genius Dogs' Can Learn New Words By Eavesdropping: Study

Research suggests they learn as well as 1.5-year-old toddlers.

Long recognized as a skill used by toddlers who are learning to understand language, scientists have discovered that a rare subset of “genius dogs” has also mastered the art of eavesdropping to decode human communication. 

“We found that these dogs can learn the names of new toys when they listen to their owners interact between them,” Shany Dror, a postdoctoral researcher at the Veterinary University in Vienna and Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, told ABC News. “So, they can kind of eavesdrop on their owners' conversation and pick up new words, new object labels from this.”

In a new peer-reviewed study, Dror, the lead researcher, called these precocious pups “Gifted Word Learner” (GWL) dogs who can surprisingly pick up hundreds of object names just by listening to their owners talk. Research suggests they learn as well as 1.5-year-old toddlers.

“I think it's impressive by itself to see that dogs are able to do something that, until now, we've mostly seen young children,” Dror said.

Unlike most dogs, GWL dogs can go beyond typical action commands like “sit” and “roll over.” They tend to develop a larger vocabulary naturally without guided training, as seen in one of the study’s participants, Basket, a seven-year-old Border Collie, who can retrieve her MetroCard on command.

“I think it shows us how complex the ability of dogs is and how complex are the social abilities of dogs," Dror said.

Scientists studied a group of 10 dogs in two experiments to test how well they learned new labels for their toys. In the first experiment, owners spent time directly introducing two new toys to their dogs. After exposing the dogs to the toys, the owners transitioned to talking about the toys with another person without involving the dogs. Seven of the dogs tested in that experiment successfully learned the names of their new toys in just eight minutes.

Shira, a nine-year-old rescue dog, that knows the names of over 300 dog toys.

In the second experiment, researchers tested the dogs' ability to recognize the name of the new toy without being able to see it. Despite the toy now being out of sight, scientists say most of the gifted dogs overcame this challenge and successfully learned the new labels.

However, Dror noted that not all dogs are gifted. While earlier research has shown that most dogs excel at reading human communication, the ELTE University study demonstrates “To what extent some dogs can bring this skill.”

“These dogs provide an exceptional model for exploring some of the cognitive abilities that enabled humans to develop language,” Dror said in a statement. “But we do not suggest that all dogs learn in this way -- far from it.”

While the study suggests some pets may possess this gifted learning ability due to a mix of “individual predispositions and unique life experiences,” Dror says it’s still unclear which factors matter most or how they interact.

This new research builds on the Genius Dog Challenge Research Project, led by Claudia Fugazza and Adam Miklósi, professor and head of the Department of Ethology at ELTE University. The project aims to better understand how dogs learn object names. Researchers are currently seeking dogs that can identify 10 or more toys by name to expand their understanding of how these pups' minds work.

“We are always looking for more dogs,” Dror said, adding that her team hopes to study more dogs with this rare ability.