How many words does your dog know?

We all recognize that our dogs understand spoken words. You might commonly think of words that were specifically trained, like “sit” and “stay”. But dogs can also make associations between words that they regularly hear and their meaning. My dogs quickly learned "treat” and “walk” without any specific training. What about your dogs? How many words does your dog know?

What dog learned the most words? A border collie named Chaser set the record by understanding over 1000 spoken words. She was raised and trained in South Carolina by psychology professor John W. Pilley. Starting with Chaser as a puppy, Dr. Pilley worked with her for hours each day to learn different words. His goal was to explore the capabilities of language learning and communication between humans and dogs. Chaser changed our understanding of dog intelligence when she learned the names of more than a thousand toys and sentences with multiple elements of grammar. She was not only able to choose a toy from among a random selection of toys but could also select the toy with a name she never heard before through a process of elimination. Check out this cool video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omaHv5sxiFI and read the book by Dr. Pilley: Chaser: Unlocking the Genius of the Dog Who Knows a Thousand Words.

 Chaser may have been an extraordinary dog, but all dogs can understand words (and hand signals, too). Some dog breeds are better at this than others, because they were bred to pay more attention to human commands. Border collies, German shepherds and retrievers can usually learn over 200 words, but most dogs can learn over 100 words with dedicated training. Using positive rewards - like small healthy treats, praise, or play – work best. Researchers recently reported that dogs learned new words best when in a social context, such as learning the name of a toy when the owner played with the dog.

 For some fun with your pup, why not help your dog learn words! Toys or other objects are the simplest if your dog likes them. Draw your dog’s attention to the object and say its name clearly every time you interact with the object. For example, say “bear” every time you play with a specific teddy bear toy. Pair this with training to bring you objects, and you can say “fetch bear” and your dog will learn to bring the bear toy to you. I bet you would be surprised to realize how many words your dog knows already!