While many people will have experienced forgetting the name of someone they have just met, “gifted” dogs are able to remember the names of new toys two months later, researchers have found.
Scientists examined the ability of six smart collies, identified through the Genius Dog Challenge, to learn the names of toys.
They found that most of the talented canines learnt 12 new toy names in one week and went on to remember them for two months.
Researchers suggested that these dogs were a powerful model for studying mental mechanisms related to word acquisition in a non-humans.
Shany Dror, leading researcher, from the Family Dog Project at Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, said: “We know that dogs can easily learn words that are linked to actions, such as ‘sit’ or ‘down’. But very few dogs can learn names of objects.
“For more than two years we searched around the world for dogs that had learnt the names of their toys, and we managed to find six.”
The dogs, – Max from Hungary, Gaia from Brazil, Nalani from The Netherlands, Squall from America, Whisky from Norway, and Rico from Spain – all qualified to participate in the challenge.
To do so, the animals had to prove they knew the names of more than 28 toys, with some knowing more than 100.
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