Dogs That Learn Words

Chaser's huge vocabulary

Chaser was a Border Collie living in South Carolina with psychologist John Pilley. In a study published in 2011 with Alliston Reid, Pilley reported that over about three years of intensive training Chaser learned and remembered the names of 1,022 different objects, mostly toys.

The tests were careful. Chaser had to pick a named toy out of a group without seeing her owner's face for hints. She also showed she could combine a name with different actions, such as nosing, pawing or fetching the same toy.

More than just labels

Chaser could learn category words, understanding that one word might cover a whole group of toys. She could also learn by exclusion: when asked for a new name, she picked the one unfamiliar toy among toys she already knew.

The authors argued that Chaser understood that names refer to objects, an ability more often linked with young children. It was a big moment for dog cognition research.

The gifted word learners

Researchers at the Family Dog Project in Budapest went looking for more dogs like Chaser. In a 2021 study in Scientific Reports, Claudia Fugazza and colleagues tested two dogs that already knew many toy names. Both learned new toy names after just four exposures while playing with their owners.

Learning through a pure exclusion task did not work as well, and the new names tended to fade after an hour without more practice. When the team tested 20 typical family dogs with the same method, those dogs showed no sign of learning the names. Scientists now describe dogs with this rare talent as gifted word learners.

Can every dog do it?

Most dogs learn a handful of cues and a few toy names, and that is perfectly normal. The research suggests that a big vocabulary of object names is an unusual gift, not a test every dog should pass.

Still, naming your dog's toys and playing find-it games is great fun and good brain work. Nova is working on her toy list, one game of fetch at a time.

If you try it, keep sessions short and playful. In the 2021 study the dogs learned during social play with their owners, not through drills, so make the toy name part of a happy game and reward every good try.

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