If your dog can distinguish between toys and doesn’t destroy them, then it may be a genius. That’s according to scientists who have identified a unique type of genius dog and have found that it all depends on how well they know their toys. You can read more about it here.
The dogs referred to by the researchers behind this study are known as gifted word learner (GWL) dogs. They know the names of their toys and can retrieve them on command. In fact, they can learn words very quickly and have been found to be incredibly rare.
One of the first organizations to closely examine the characteristics of these dogs, using a sample of 41 dogs from nine countries, was the Eötvös Lorand University (ELTE) in Hungary. The results showed that the genius dogs knew the names of 29 toys on average, but many of them knew over 100 of their toys by the end of the study.
Max, one of the genius dogs studied, knows the names of over 200 toys. Max, a 5-year-old male border collie, is from Hungary. – Photo credit: Ildiko Gyenes
To confirm that these dogs were real, the researchers first asked owners to send in videos of their dogs retrieving toys by name. After this stage, the researchers met with owners in a “virtual lab” to test the toy retrieval in more controlled conditions.
The study conducted by ELTE revealed that GWL dog owners reported that their talented pups were able to learn the names of new toys within 30 minutes. It became clear that certain breeds, such as Border Collies, were more likely to have this talent than others. However, no special training is required to own a GWL dog.
These dogs are so rare that it took researchers five years to find 41 dogs in nine countries using social media. You can watch their experiments here.
“GWL dogs are so rare that until now we only had anecdotes about their background.” – Professor Adam Miklosi, head of the Department of Animal Behavior at ELTE
For more information, read more
Source: www.sciencefocus.com
