Smart Pets: Dogs understand what a Frisbee is

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Dog with EEG: Experiments with 18 dogs and their owners

Photo: Grzegorz Eliasiewicz

For many owners, their own dog is the most intelligent of all. It's easy to get the impression that people grossly overestimate their animals. But a study now suggests that dogs may even be fundamentally underestimated. According to the researchers, the animals know that certain words stand for certain objects - and therefore, for example, what a ball or a Frisbee is.

“Your dog understands more than he lets on,” said lead author Lilla Magyari from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, according to a statement. "Dogs not only learn a certain behavior for certain words, but they could actually understand the meaning of individual words, like we humans do."

The researchers experimented with 18 dogs. The respective owners told their animals words for toys that they knew. They then showed the dogs either that exact toy - or another object that didn't fit the term. The researchers recorded brain activity using an EEG that they taped to the dogs' heads.

The result: The pattern in the brain varied depending on whether the dog was shown the appropriate object or another. When dogs heard familiar words, brain activity indicated that they were activating a corresponding memory, the team reports.

The brain activities of animals are similar to those of humans in this respect. They are generally seen as evidence that the words are understood and associated with the appropriate objects, it is said. The researchers also report that they found a larger difference in these patterns for words that the dogs already knew well. From this they also deduce that animals have an understanding of objects.

“It doesn’t matter how many object words a dog understands,” said co-author Marianna Boros. In any case, the brain activity of familiar objects suggests that dogs generally have the ability to recognize them - "and not just a few exceptional individuals who know the names of many objects." The researchers presented their results in the journal “Current Biology”.

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