Your dog might understand more than you realize. There are the wonder pups who appear on social media that memorized an endless list of toys and tricks, but they aren’t the only smart canines out there. Even the average family pet has the capacity to learn up to about 90 human words or phrases, and smarter dogs can learn up to around 200, according to a study published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science in 2001.
But this raises a question. Dogs don’t have a language. Wolves don’t give each other directions or recite poetry. What exactly are dogs picking up on when we try to communicate with them? Researchers have tried answering this question for years and recent research is getting us closer.
Scientists have recently started using scanning machines like MRIs to look beyond behavior and inside the canine brain. In 2020, scientists trained 12 pet dogs to lay ...
