Gifted dogs remember the names of toys for two years

Gifted dogs can remember the names of their favourite toys for at least two years, according to a memory test conducted by researchers.

Almost all dogs can learn words linked to actions, such as “sit” or “down”, but only a small group, known as “gifted word-learner” dogs, can learn a wide range of words denoting specific objects.

Researchers at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary, challenged the owners of six dogs, all border collies, to teach their pets the names of 12 new toys in a week. An initial study showed that the dogs were able to learn the names and retrieve the correct toy when asked.

After the tests were completed in 2020, researchers asked the owners to hide and store the toys out of sight. “We waited two years and then decided to test the dogs again to see if they still remembered the toy names,” said Dr Shany Dror, the lead researcher. It was attempted “with no further rehearsal”.

One of the six dogs had died, so the remaining five were tested. A few owners had lost some of the toys, so three of the dogs were tested on all 12 toys, one dog was tested on 11 toys and one dog on five.

“After two years, we all had a hard time remembering the names of the toys, but not the dogs. They did not seem to struggle,” Dror said. Four of the dogs remembered the names of between 60 and 75 per cent of the toys.

When the name of the toy was spoken, the dogs picked the correct toy out of the line-up on 44 per cent of attempts.

This was “significantly above chance level”, the researchers said, because a dog faced with 12 toys would be expected to get it right on just 8.3 per cent of tries if it was simply guessing, while a dog faced with five toys would get it right 20 per cent of the time based on chance alone.

The study, which was published in the journal Biology Letters, found: “When comparing the dogs’ group performance in the present two-year memory test with that of the one- and two-month memory tests, it appears that there was no significant reduction in their recall of the labelled objects.”

Dr Claudia Fugazza, head of the research group, said: “We know that dogs can remember events for at least 24 hours and odours for up to one year, but this is the first study showing that some talented dogs can remember words for at least two years.”

She added: “The findings of our current study cannot be generalised to other dogs because we only tested gifted word-learner dogs, individuals that show a special talent for acquiring object words.”

Although border collies have proved to be the most gifted breed when it comes to a wide vocabulary of objects, some German shepherds, Pekinese and mini Australian shepherd dogs may also have the knack, scientists believe.

The six collies used in the original study were recruited after a worldwide search for talented dogs. They were all found to know more than 28 toys by name, with some able to recognise more than 100.

The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, found that some dogs had “cognitive skills that are functionally similar to those of human infants”.

The five dogs in the study were Max from Hungary, Gaia from Brazil, Squall from Florida, Whisky from Norway, and Rico from Spain. Nalani, a collie from the Netherlands, passed away before the second study could be carried out.

The study suggested that, had the dogs been introduced to fewer toys in the initial test and been given longer to familiarise themselves with the toys, their scores would have been even higher