Credits: Social Media
Scientists say your dog might be a genius if they can learn toy names in under 30 minutes
Scientists have found that genius dogs all share the same traits: Fast learning speeds, a large vocabulary, and the ability to learn on the fly.
Every dog owner will claim that their canine companion is a genius, but are they really amongst the smartest pups on the planet? It turns out that the definition of genius in dogs comes in the form of how quickly and how many toys they can learn.
The secret to genius dogs comes down to picking out toys, not party tricks
According to scientists from the Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, if your dog can learn the name of a new toy in under 30 minutes, they might be a bone-fied genius.
The smartest dogs arent the ones who can just roll over or play dead, its the ones who know the names of their toys and can retrieve them on command known as Gifted Word Leaners (GWL).
Previously, research has only ever tended to look at GWL dogs on an individual basis but this time, with the help of 41 clever canines found through social media, the team was able to identify some of the characteristics that all of these genius dogs shared.
Because GWL dogs are so rare, until now there were only anecdotes about their background. The relatively large sample of dogs documented in this study helps us to identify the common characteristics that are shared among these dogs, and brings us one step closer in the quest of understanding their unique ability.
They found that on average, GWL dogs knew the names of 29 different toys and could learn the names of new toys that they had never seen before in under half an hour.
Amongst the most genius of poochy-participants, some dogs learned toy names so quickly that by the end of the research, they had memorized over 100 different toys.
Out of the 41 GWL dogs that took part in the research:
- 56% were Border Collies
- 9.8% were Bordie Collie crosses
- 7.3% were Labradors
- 4.9% were Pomeranians
Also among the most common GWL dogs in the study were Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Miniature Australian Shepherd, German Shepherd, Toy Poodle, Pekingese, and Shih Tzu.
Incredibly, one of the smartest dogs in the study was a gorgeous Border Collie called Max who knew the names of over 200 toys and could retrieve them on command.
The vast majority of the owners claimed that they played with their dogs favorite named toys daily and up to 30 minutes at a time. Around 20% stated that they played two to four times per day and 11% even said that they would play for up to an hour at a time.
However, dont let those numbers fool you though, you dont have to have experience with GWL dogs or have hours upon hours of spare time in order to support your dog’s learning.
In fact, most of the owners who took part in this study didnt have a background in professional dog training at all, nor did they specifically train their dogs to learn new toy names.
Thats right, even just talking to your dog on a regular basis during play was enough for some GWL to memorize which toy was which; with upwards of 74% of owners claiming they didnt intentionally teach toy names.
This suggests that the owners experience of interacting with a GWL dog may not be the key requisite for the emergence of the ability to learn in other dogs the researchers argue.
Could your dog be a GWL genius, check out the full research paper via Nature to find out more.
