PFor every owner, his dog is the most special. But there are some dogs that are objectively more special than others. Particularly intelligent dogs, otherwise known as gifted, or gifted. It was dedicated to the topic a study published in Nature Scientific Reports. The researchers of Family Dog Project of Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest have focused in particular on ability to know the name of different objects (GWL – Gifted Word Learner dogs).
Intelligent dogs, the study hunting for “gifted” four-legged friends
For five years they “hunted” these talents in flesh, blood and fur, even launching a social campaign to reach as many people – and dogs – as possible. «It was a project of citizen science“, explains Claudia Fugazza, researcher in Budapest. “When a dog owner told us that he thought his dog knew the names of the toys, we gave him instructions on how to self-test it in protected conditions and asked him to send us the video of the test.”
Although some bipeds were convinced that their quadruped knew a series of objects, in reality this was not the case. In most cases it was just randomness, habit, or an indirect response to our stimulus. «If, however, the dog showed that he really knew the names of the objects, we proposed to his owner a questionnaire on life experience and learning processand the test continued”, added Andrea Sommese.
How learning happens
It may be surprising to learn that most owners of the gifted dogs discovered in the study did not train their dog to memorize the names of toys.
Dogs look like learn them spontaneously during gaming sessions. This giftedness therefore truly seems to be an innate peculiarity.
The researchers also noticed that these dogs continued to learn during the tests. As in the case of Gaia, who lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil: when she was enrolled in the study she knew the names of 24 toys, in just three months she reached 37 and today she knows more than 80.
The test to find out if our dog is gifted
At this point everyone can test their dog with, below, the video of the test to repeat at home. Who knows, maybe the 42nd is resting at your feet right now gifted dog that those discovered in the study could well find space.
The research has in fact made it possible to find 41 gifted dogs from 9 different countries: United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada, Norway, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Hungary.
Among the common characteristics of intelligent dogs there is no breed
Many of the “smart dogs” participating in the current study (56%) were Border Colliethe breed that has always been considered the most intelligent, and always included in studies on these topics.
However, this research has documented the ability to learn names in every breed, from Pomeranian to Pekingese, from Corgi to Shih Tzu, including mixed breeds. The most gifted dog discovered so far is called Shira, she is 6 years old, she was saved from the streets when she was a puppy: today she lives in New Jersey and knows the names of 125 toys.
The study of “dogs that possess a vocabulary of object labels” (Gifted Word Learner dogs – GWL dogs) is important for studying a variety of cognitive mechanisms. Especially because they seem to share a lot distinguishing features: such as their speed of learning, their large vocabulary and the fact that they learned the names of toys spontaneously, without the explicit intent of their owners.
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