Some Dogs May Have a Higher Functioning Long Term Memory Than Expected

As dog parents, we're always looking for ways to communicate with our pups. We use training techniques, physical cues, and speech of course. We tell them we'll be back soon, to be good, that we love them more than words can say. But while some of us can talk endlessly to our dogs—work from home folks, we see you—there may still be times when you wonder, "How much of what I'm saying actually resonates?"

Can dogs really understand what we're saying?

There have been numerous studies done that follow similar tactics to those that track infant comprehension where dogs are judged on how well they can match objects to verbal commands in the present. But recently a study took a group of gifted word learner dogs and analyzed how well they could match toys from two years prior with their given names. 

Before we dive into the results, let's quickly touch on what it means to be a gifted word learner dog. There are some breeds that seem to have a higher level of verbal comprehension than others, these word-smart breeds include Pomerianians, Pekiniese, Corgis, Poodles, Shih Tzus, some mixed breeds, and Border Collies—the latter was the focus group of this particular study. Abbreviated as GWL, these dogs are typically adopted before they are 10 weeks old and live in a single-dog household.

The Study and The Results

In this study conducted by Shany Dror of Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, five GWL dogs's long term memories were put to the test. The dogs had learned the names of 12 new toys in earlier research. These toys were subsequently put away for two years and then were reintroduced. Once the dogs inspected the toys, the dogs were asked to retrieve individual toys by name. 

Overall the dogs picked the correct toy 44% of the time on average—with some having a success rate of up to 60%. These figures were far above the level expected by the study conductors.

Researchers also concluded that it is likely that reducing the initial number of labels to which the dogs were exposed, or increasing the duration of the exposure to the object label pairings, would have led to an even better performance in the recall test. Further the dog whose parent reported longer daily interactions out of the five dogs demonstrated a slightly higher performance.

When it comes down to overall dog comprehension, “The more you invest in your dog, the more you will get back from the relationship,” Dror said— and we bet your pup agrees.