\n<\/p>\n
September 18, 2025<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Some Dogs Can Learn Categories like Human Toddlers Do<\/p>\n
These dogs can extend words to new objects based on function the way children do in early language learning<\/p>\n
By Anirban Mukhopadhyay edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier<\/span><\/p>\n Researchers found that some dogs can learn terms for functional categories, such as \u2018pull\u2019 and \u2018throw\u2019 toys.<\/p>\n Iuliia Zavalishina\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Arya, a six-year-old border collie in Italy, can learn a new toy\u2019s name from just one or two mentions. Her owners say she even knows her favorite foods\u2019 names; when pizza is on the menu, the word has to be whispered. Arya\u2019s gift made her a natural for a new Current Biology study showing that some dogs with unusually large vocabularies can go beyond simply memorizing names.<\/p>\n For the study, owners of 10 talented dogs\u2014mostly border collies\u2014taught them words for two categories: tug toys, called pulls, and fetch toys, called throws. All toys were different in size, shape and color, so appearance could not guide learning.<\/p>\n Arya was one of 10 gifted word-learner dogs\u2014eight border collies, one blue heeler, one Labrador retriever and one Welsh corgi pembroke\u2014to participate in the new experiment.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n After four weeks of training, brand-new toys that looked nothing like typical pulls or throws were introduced. This time, the dogs only experienced each toy\u2019s function (either tugging or fetching) during play; they were not taught words for any of them. After a week of play, when asked to fetch a pull or a throw, the dogs chose the right toy two thirds of the time\u2014well above the 12.5 percent expected by chance. \u201cThese gifted word-learner dogs are not only able to memorize the labels of many different objects, but can also extend a familiar word to new objects that share the same function, even if they look very different,\u201d says study lead author Claudia Fugazza, an ethologist at E\u00f6tv\u00f6s Lor\u00e1nd University in Hungary.<\/p>\n Fugazza emphasizes that these animals are exceptional; most family dogs never build such vocabularies. She says the dogs\u2019 ease and flexibility applying words by function, similar to how human children begin extending their vocabularies, was surprising.<\/p>\n Elika Bergelson, a Harvard University language scientist who was not part of the new study, says human infants \u201cmostly rely on how things look. But by 14 months they can also use role or function\u2014for instance, telling apart who is chasing and who is being chased in a scenario\u2014to extend words\u201d to new things, much like the dogs in the study did. In everyday life, function and appearance usually go together: all cups share a basic shape because it makes them good at holding liquid. \u201cUnlike the real world, where ropes look tug-worthy and balls appear throwable, this study isolates the function,\u201d Bergelson says. \u201cTaking away visual cues is a clean way to probe how categories might form across species.\u201d<\/p>\n Back home, Arya is busy with her favorite search games and word play, oblivious to her superpower. \u201cBecause these dogs live in families and pick up words naturally,\u201d Fugazza says, \u201ctheir parallel to early child learning could offer scientists unique possibilities to explore how language-related abilities might have evolved\u2014and how they can emerge in a nonlinguistic species.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" September 18, 2025 2 min read Some Dogs Can Learn Categories like Human Toddlers Do These dogs can extend words to new objects based on function the way children do in early language learning By Anirban Mukhopadhyay edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier Researchers found that some dogs can learn terms for functional categories, such as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[13641,8977,4403,1482,2120,13640,3787],"class_list":{"0":"post-22230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-category","9":"tag-dogs","10":"tag-large","11":"tag-names","12":"tag-understand","13":"tag-vocabularies","14":"tag-words"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
It\u2019s Time to Stand Up for Science<\/h2>\n