"Arya, a six-year-old border collie in Italy, can learn a new toy's name from just one or two mentions. Her owners say she even knows her favorite foods' names; when pizza is on the menu, the word has to be whispered. Arya's 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."
"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's 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 timewell above the 12.5 percent expected by chance."
Ten gifted word-learning dogs, mostly border collies, learned labels for two toy categories: tug toys called pulls and fetch toys called throws. Trainers ensured toys varied in size, shape and color so appearance could not guide learning. After four weeks of training, novel toys with unfamiliar appearances were introduced and only their functions were experienced during play. After a week, the dogs selected the correct toy type about two thirds of the time, far exceeding the 12.5 percent chance level. The ability to extend words by function appears rare and exceptional among family dogs.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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