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My German Shepherd knows the names of about 10 different toys. I can tell him “go get the cactus/pineapple/red bone/donut/basketball/blue ball (his favorite)/etc.” and he’ll even drop what’s in his mouth to get the right toy.
I can ask him: “Where is [person]/[toy]?” and he’ll run all over the house, upstairs and downstairs, to find them. He loves hide and seek.
People underestimate the intelligence of dogs and animals in general.
Edit: Here’s a writeup on animal intelligence, cognition, and culture. (I have ads turned off and do not benefit in any way from my blog.)
Annnnd water is wet!
This feels like one of those things that’s kind of a confirmation of existing common knowledge. If you have dogs, you are probably very aware that dogs know certain words and develop expectations around routinely used words and actions. For example, running through a list of words my dogs know and gauging their reactions will tell me exactly what they want nine times out of ten.
Dog boops. “Food?” … “Water?” … “Outside?” Tilt “You want outside?” Dogs stampede to door
It’s kind of wild how much they understand of vocabulary, but add in the way they read faces and body language, it’s frankly amazing.
I find this of cats too.
I know a lot of people think they’re aloof and dumb, but my cats know their names, each others names, and several words. You can tell because they hear it and try to ignore it, but their tail wags giving away that they do know what you’re saying.
They can also pick up really specific sounds, like if I pick up two small plates they run over hopping in giving them wet food. Not one plate, not three, not large or medium, only two small ones.
Recently there was an article stating they do know their names after all, but to most owners it seemed obvious.
Yeah. Cats are really, really good at making it clear they understand when you’re calling for them and they’re choosing not to respond. I figure it’s fair; there are plenty of people I wouldn’t cross a room to talk to, either
Cats have names for each other, and you. They ignore those too, but they are distinct sound sequences.
Yeah true. We teach our dog a name for every new toy and she loves it when you ask her to find them.
My dog knows the word “words.” It means “Person is getting ready to say things that I understand, I should pay attention.”
