‘Gifted’ dogs can remember names of toys for at least two years, study shows

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

“Gifted” dogs can remember the names of their toys for at least two years, scientists have found.

Previous research has shown these rare pooches, known as gifted word learners (GWL), have a unique ability to learn the names of hundreds of different objects.

A new study, published in the journal Biology Letters, now suggests they can remember the names of some of these toys for an extended period of time.

The hope is that the talented dogs could help scientists understand more about how animals other than humans retain their memories.

Dr Claudia Fugazza, the head of the research group at Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, 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.

“The findings of our current study cannot be generalised to other dogs because we only tested GWL dogs, individuals that show a special talent for acquiring object words.”

For the study, the researchers analysed the behaviour of five border collies: Gaia, Max, Whiskey, Squall and Rico.

These GWL dogs had learnt and remembered the names of multiple toys and were tested again two years on.

The researchers said that “remarkably” four out of five dogs remembered the names of between 60-75% of the toys after two years, with Gaia performing the best.

As a group, the dogs’ performance averaged at 44% correct choices, which is significantly above chance level, the team added.

Dr Shany Dror, lead researcher on the study at Eotvos Lorand University, said: “We waited two years and then decided to test the dogs again, to see if they still remembered the toy names.

“Because such a long time has passed some of the owners lost a few of the toys.

“Thus, three dogs were tested on 12 toys, one dog on 11 and one dog on five.

“After two years, we all had a hard time remembering the names of toys.

“But not the dogs! They did not seem to struggle.”

The research is part of a project known as the Genius Dog Challenge and the scientists are urging owners who believe their dogs know multiple toy names to contact them via the project’s website.