How Many Words Can A Dog Learn
According to experts intelligent dogs can learn around 165 words.
How many words can a dog learn. The words and commands my dog knows. Despite their bad rap for being un teachable adult dogs can learn new words just not as quickly as youngsters. Taken literally that means the number of words and commands a dog knows. The most recognized study on this topic was researched by psychologist stanley coren at the university of british columbia.
The researchers stopped at. My dog is a 10 year old black lab great pyrenees mix. Believe it or not my dog even knows how to spell some words. By gayle hickman sep 15 2011 may 19 2020.
In fact one study shows that an average trained dog will understand about 160 words. A dog can recognize an average of 160 words. How many words can a dog learn to understand. His analysis focused on a study regarding the ability and intelligence that dogs have in learning new words.
In his research coren concluded that dogs are able to understand approximately 160 words as long as they are stimulated properly. And genetics also plays a part. For example walk is associated with something dogs like to do whereas the command sit is harder because it is based on a learned behavior. Both chaser and rico were border collies a working breed with a long history of intelligence used for carrying out owner s sheep herding commands.
Nevertheless dogs arguably have an impressive ability to understand non verbal human cues like body language and tone of voice. Dog psychologists say that dogs can learn up to 250 words if the owner can persevere without getting angry upset impatient frustrated or anything else that could put a negative spin on the activity. According to psychologist stanley coren the average dog can learn 165 words and dogs in the top 20 percent of dog intelligence can learn 250 words. As far as we know dogs don t understand words that refer to abstract concepts.
Most people only teach their pet about 20 words but it is believed that dogs can learn over 100 words with proper training. This varies slightly depending on what expert you ask. Some words are easier to learn than others. Poodles german shepherds golden retrievers and.
One of the smartest dogs ever studied was a border collie named chaser that learned over 1 000 words. The kind of words dog can understand however is limited. We often forget that dogs are animals and as such they don rsquo t think and learn the way humans do.