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they just learn by association
How else to you learn a name?
A friend hadn’t even taught their dogs to respond to calls for dinner!
I thought it was the other way round?
Dogs are really not that clever, they just learn by association.
No, they are, more than some folk give them credit for. Some are thick as pigshit but that applies to people too so not really noteworthy.
Our 10 month lab knows to react to her name, knows the toys Fox, Elephant and Racoon by name, when she got Racoon it took just 3 goes before she got that one. Also knows me and girlfriends names.
Asking if she wants to go for a walk will get her jumping up even if half asleep.
Apart from facts. And there ain’t no facts on here.
I shall endeavour to fetch you some 🐾🐾
From rover.com
How Dogs Understand Humans
Dogs learn words through a combination of deductive reasoning and positive reinforcement, but it’s unclear if dogs are able to conceive of themselves as an entity with a name. (It’s thought that perhaps they don’t.)
In other words, when I say, “Good morning, Henry,” to our Catahoula, he isn’t thinking, “There’s Mum saying hello to me, whose name is Henry!”
He might simply be thinking, “There’s Mum. She’s making that sound that usually means something good is about to happen. I predict breakfast!”
Dogs, of course, also read context and body language. When I grab the lead, it doesn’t matter what I say: the dog expects to go out.
Dogs certainly think of themselves (as beings) in certain ways: “More food for me!” Or, “This pee smells like mine!” Or, “That dog is not me.” But the extent to which dogs conceive of themselves as having a self, or whether or not they can imagine an autobiography about their lives—well, it’s hard to say (and for most dog lovers, that’s just fine.)
The native language of a dog is body-language so as a dog-owner (or potential dog owner/someone who wants to get to know dogs) it would help a lot to learn about their native language as well as teaching them human words. Meet them halfway, so to speak? (Thinks: us humans often say one thing and yet mean another)
Dogs also tend to train humans to use high-pitched and emotional ‘baby-talk’ speech, as they tend respond better to that tone than something less expressive. I suppose if they are ‘forced’ to learn words rather than their native body language then we as part of the bargain would do well in most cases to up our game in both speech and body-language in pursuit of better results and bonding?
So, abstract thinking or understanding complex maths. Not really on a dog's agenda is it?!
They just 'associate' a sound with a result. As above, it's probably more to do with how it's said and other factors than the name itself.
So, abstract thinking or understanding complex maths. Not really on a dog’s agenda is it?!
Brilliant deduction Holmes 😉. I imagine even if they could do calculus it would be pretty boring compared to let's have fun/eat/destroy stuff/cuddle/swim/drink/play games/bonk/run/have a silly 5 minutes/sleep like a dog. They have a strong case…
it’s probably more to do with how it’s said and other factors than the name itself.
Yes, I imagine like English toddlers French from teachers who refuse to first learn English.
English toddlers *learning French…
So where human toddlers probably diverge from dogs (when learning words) is the point where they begin to learn that the word "dog" refers not to all four-legged animals, and not just to Ralph, but to all members of a particular species? How do they learn the meanings of verbs like "think," adjectives like "good," or words for abstract entities such as "mortgage" and "story"?
While I agree that dogs most likely don’t place complex mathematics high on their agenda (I don’t claim to know how much hey place simple maths on their agenda - ie how long to until walk, how many YumSmax vs how many Gnoravits, or do they (like ants) calculate distance by how many steps they take?
As for abstract concepts - I suppose in order to quantify, one would need to determine whether you mean it literally or abstractly 😉. ie what is ‘abstract concept’ in a literal sense? And is ‘it’ defined/determined by it’s complexity or by it’s existence?
Once that is established, then one could attempt to apply it to/measure it against a dog’s daily concerns.
I think this depends on exactly what you mean by 'know'.
This is Ada at 8 months demonstrating that she knows her release word (OK) and isn't just responding to my voice. You may be able to tell from the drool that this was a lot of effort for her!
@finephilly ie one simple definition of abstract thinking is ‘the ability to mentally sort objects into categories’
Ability to do that?
Experiments show:
Humans? Y
Dogs? Y
Birds Y
But it’s less simple because Human A and Human B may have widely differing ‘agendas’ about categorising and sorting. ie Harry may think it a life and death issue while Mia more happily skips through such concerns in any typical day and would prefer other people to be worrying about that on her behalf if at all. And dogs too are very much like this, ie Dog A vs Dog B may also vary/differ widely with regards to personal concerns and mental abilities/strengths/weaknesses (beyond simple survival)
So, abstract thinking or understanding complex maths. Not really on a dog’s agenda is it?!
They just ‘associate’ a sound with a result. As above, it’s probably more to do with how it’s said and other factors than the name itself.
Its superstition - lots of animals are superstitious and the more superstitious they are the better we can train them. They associate an act or action with an outcome (punishment or reward) and will continue to expect that outcome overtime theres that action even if more often or not they don't get that outcome.
Anyway it may well know its own name - but does your dog know yours? No they just think about themselves. Thoughtless, selfish, bad-breath, superstitious bastards.
My dog is called Harry.
He’s responded to Gary, Barry, Marry, Carrie….
Idiot 🙄
My mum's dog is called Domino. I shorten it to Dom but he also responds to Dog, Fog and Bog. It's always funny when he's off the lead and just yelling "Dog!" and he appears, amuses my 2 year old niece every time.
I always wanted a cat called Dog or a horse called Cow
This is Ada at 8 months demonstrating that she knows her release word (OK)
My labs the same. I'll tell him to "wait" and not touch the treat/ball/toy. I can talk away to him or someone else and he won't touch it until he hears me say "On you go"
Our dog's called Blacksmith. Every time I go near him he makes a bolt for the door.
Boom Tish.
Our dog knows his own name, and his toys by name. We also have to be careful about using the word "walk" in any tone or context, because he goes bonkers.
On the other hand, he walks into wheelie bins on walks because he's too busy looking at cats, so I'm not convinced he's that bright.
Our dog, above mentioned Ada is quite fond of watching helicopters and tractors but she usually sits down to watch so dont walk into things
Might have to take her to an airshow at Shuttleworth at some point 🙂
I always wanted a cat called Dog or a horse called Cow
My other half used to have a cat called Fido.
She also had a hamster called 3.99
My labs the same. I’ll tell him to “wait” and not touch the treat/ball/toy. I can talk away to him or someone else and he won’t touch it until he hears me say “On you go”
A friend was got in from a run, put some food down for her dogs and got distracted by other stuff - kids shouting for her and so on. She had a shower, went back downstairs and both her dogs were sitting there looking at their full food bowls cos she'd forgotten to give them the release word to eat. She was part mortified but part very proud of them!
I like the 3.99 hamster name
Our cat knows his name, but also seems familiar with being called "dickhead" "****er" "shitbag" "fluff face" and "stinky boy"...
I don't think pets know their names as such, they just get familiar with the human mouth sounds that accompany any attention they receive (positive or negative)...
Interesting
Of course they do. Even if someone never owned a dog, it seems like the something everyone just knows. Like where does milk or bread come from.
IME dogs know their own name, other dogs' names, and people's names.
The cat just ignores everything we say.
You're just staff and no importance in its life.
My dog just understood tone and intonation, and may have known i was using her name, but wasn't picky.
She was extremely attentive. If i called her name in the normal pattern she'd respond. Or if i swapped a letter or two. If i changed the tone she wouldn't.
Likewise she'd Sit, Shit, Fit, Kit, Mit ... or Heel, Feel, etc as long as I said it in the same tone.
She would also bark at the doorbell ... even if it was on the TV.
In terms of understanding the concept of a 'name' wouldn't dogs have the ability to call out to specific dogs in a pack?
My dog clearly knows that a combination of sounds (whether said by me or others) are made to attract her attention with no specific result intended (as opposed to 'stay', 'come here', 'dinner', 'left', 'right' etc), but I don't know if she understands the concept of a name!
If you named a dog "ding-dong" (with appropriate intonation) would it run to the front door and bark every time you called its name?
Probably not if you had a brass bell at the front door.
Dog A vs Dog B may also vary/differ widely with regards to personal concerns and mental abilities/strengths/weaknesses (beyond simple survival)
Exactly. Grouping all dogs the same is like grouping all people the same. I have 2 dogs which are brother and sister. They are not similar in any way at all in how they act, react etc,.
Neither are what I would call intelligent but they get through their lives well and have fun doing so and are probably having a better time than a lot of humans.
Like where does milk or bread come from.
Fortnum and Mason, yes?
Of course they do. Some refs if anyone wants them.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaf3777
Pilley JW, Reid AK. 2011. Border collie comprehends object names as verbal referents. Behavioural Processes. 86, 184–195.
Pilley JW. 2013. Border collie comprehends sentences containing a prepositional object, verb and direct object. Learning and Motivation, 44, 229–240.
Ratcliffe VF, Reby D. 2014. Orienting asymmetries in dogs’ responses to different communicatory components of human speech. Current Biology, 24, 2908-2912.
...and why wouldn't they? They've evolved alongside humans for the past 15,000 years or so, with selection pressures in favour of agreeableness amongst other things. And we've pretty similar brains in the scheme of things
if they could do calculus it would be pretty boring compared to let’s have fun/eat/destroy stuff/cuddle/swim/drink/play games/bonk/run/have a silly 5 minutes/sleep like a dog.
I mean I like all that stuff, bar calculus which I've not done since age 17. I can have conceptual level thoughts about these things, just about, which I doubt a dog could. But in terms of how I feel about stuff we're using the same parts of our mamalian brains.
That's not to over anthropomorphise, thinking of those shite "what did you do" guilty dog videos. But it's not just tone of voice or whatever - I can be trying to call a friend's dog over with encouraging words and tone, but then remember the name and over they come, or ears twitch depending on dog, whateer, it's pretty obvious they know what I mean regardless of their inner understandings and self-reflaction. Or mine for that matter.
Non dog owner btw and never lived with one. Our cats may know our names for them, but if they do they're not saying.
Our Dog whilst recall is not her strongest trait if there is another Dog or interesting smell to investigate will respond eventually to her name Luna or Lunatic
She also recognises our family names and her Dog besties.
That’s not to over anthropomorphise, thinking of those shite “what did you do” guilty dog videos. But it’s not just tone of voice or whatever – I can be trying to call a
Yes I think the jury is still out on those ‘secondary’ emotions in dogs. Although a dog can without doubt feel envy, the so-called ‘guilty’ look is most likely a visible stress or fear of the dominant pack leader (you) about to reprimand the dog for some ill-doing.
I have a cousin like that. He doesn’t feel ‘guilt’ per se, he just looks guilty when he’s confronted about something he did that was ‘wrong’ 🤣. I also know at least three men with NPD and I genuinely sense more genuine empathy from my dog (and he’s fairly low on the empath scale, even for a dog) than I do from those humans. But they (humans) will learn (to varying degrees) to try and display it where it’s considered proper even if they don’t genuinely feel guilty.
Guilt is (a subsetof) shame? I honestly don’t know an accepted definition of ‘guilt’ so whether or not a dog (or a cousin 🤣) feels ‘true’ guilt would depend on a definition.
*edit
Here’s one I found
https://www.nicabm.com/guilt-vs-shame/
So going by definition of ‘helpful guilt’ - a dog does display psychological discomfort when *confronted* with something it has done wrong. Whether or not that wrong thing is ‘objective’ is another question. As is whether or not the dog feels psychological discomfort after the wrongdoing but *before* the confrontation?
I suppose you would say a dog consciously understands they are called 'fido' and that it is an identifier for them individually, as opposed to just a familiar sound they hear quite a lot.
They have much better hearing than humans so that should be borne in mind. ie they could still discern the word 'fido' from 2 different people.
As for brains though, I find it hard to believe they understand the concept of naming and certainly haven't seen any evidence of it!!
For sure, they have rituals and interactions with each other but as we're mainly examining working/domestic animals, some natural behaviours may be clouded or repressed.
I still think they're pretty thick, in the grand scheme of things.
My dog absolutely knows his name.
He mostly pretends to play deaf though, the crafty bastard hahah.
A good start would be take yr dog to meet another dog repeatedly and see if they recognise each other as individuals, rather than just members of the same species.
Also, can they pick out an individual from a pack of dogs?
I think not, based on watching hunting dogs, wild dogs etc!
I would have 100% said my dog knows her name. But I've been calling her "Nigel"* all afternoon and the crazy bastard keeps responding.
Her name is Lulu!
A good start would be take yr dog to meet another dog repeatedly and see if they recognise each other as individuals, rather than just members of the same species.
Yes they can. Not only do they recognise friends but also enemies. Dogs evolved to be strongly social animals and most of them are (although like humans a small percentage are nervous/anxious and prefer relative solitude). They recognise their siblings and parents in later life (more reliably if they were first separated after a minimum of 16 months from birth)
Usually, a wild wolf pack is made up of close and extended family members with one, unrelated breeding pair. This breeding pair take a natural position as head of the pack, which largely consists of their own offspring. Sometimes, non-family members will be accepted into a small pack.
https://www.caninemind.co.uk/pack.html
Also, can they pick out an individual from a pack of dogs?
I think not, based on watching hunting dogs, wild dogs etc!
I have to ask how you deduced that from watching ‘wild dogs’? Dogs visual discrimination is excellent, but their hearing and their sense of smell is the most important for most* dogs communication. Not only are they up to 100 million times more sensitive to smell than are humans, they can also sense weak thermal radiation (the body heat of other mammals and mammalian prey )
*ours is losing his sight to old age but he really relied on it, he is a very visual/face-reading, visually inquisitive dog, which makes it especially sad to see him stressed and confused about losing his vision 😔)
But they are nearsighted so when recognising an approaching dog from afar then the auditory and olfactory glands will be at work long before the eyes.
One study has indicated that dogs are able to tell how big another dog is just by listening to its growl. The research also shows that dogs do not, or can not, misrepresent their size, and this is the first time research has shown animals can determine another's size by the sound it makes.
Did you meet bunny yet?
^ First apply (Lloyd) Morgan’s Canon to the ‘bunny’ video?
Simpler explanations
It is possible to account for these observations without concluding that dogs truly understand the meaning of words. More specifically, we cannot rule out the idea that associations are only made between a behavior (pressing on the “toy” button) and a consequence (playing with the toy).
In other words, it is possible to learn to ask for a toy by pressing the right button, without actually understanding that it is a word or understanding the word, just as B.F. Skinner’s rats knew which lever to push to get food or water without knowing how to talk.
This is even more likely for buttons with abstract and complex meanings, like “I love you” or “stranger”, which meaning can be difficult to teach.
My greyhound does, she chooses when she responds to it mind.
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As said a few times, different dogs and different breeds have differing cognitive abilities. However, I can say with confidence that dogs do know their name and the vast majority will react when addressed by name by a stranger. Dogs can also learn a large number of words. Our dog Bonnie (black lab, shepherd, collie cross) understands something in the region of 100 words. And that's without really trying to teach her any. Properly trained she'd be well into the 100s. That said she is comfortably the most intelligent dog I've ever had.
Dogs know, recognise and remember specific individuals. Bonnie goes mental when my sister in law visits as they are old mates.
In addition, dogs most certainly know and recognise other dogs. By sight and by scent. The scent from markings tells them who the dog is, how long ago they were there, what their physical state is and a load of other info we're not party to.
They're also perfectly capable of scheming. When we first had Bonnie (as a rescue at 12months), after a few months I suggested leaving her for 30mins to start getting her used to people not being around. My wife (who'd never had a dog before) was unsure in case Bonnie was scared. Not an issue with her. We left the house with the dog looking out the front window.
Got to the gate, dog still at window.
Exited through gate and walked a few paces to the car. Dog still conspicuous by her presence.
Unlocked car and got in. Dog still not moved.
Closed doors. Still there.
Turned on engine. Dog disappeared from window.
Without turning engine off, I exited the car, crept to the front door and peeked through the letterbox. Dog is in kitchen at end of corridor, paws on counter looking for food to snaffle. She'd waited until the car engine was on before she was sure that we were actually going..
They are far more intelligent than we often give them credit for
Maybe the averagw Joe. But there are plwnty who do give them credit; having spent quite a bit of time around MWD's at work and my grandmothers assistance dog, I'm pretty clear that dogs are exceptionally intelligent animals who can learn a wide array of unique skills, but like humans some are thick as shit.
They are far more intelligent than we often give them credit for
That's fair enough, and as you say working dogs - in whatever setting - can be truly exceptional.
Certainly I've met a number of humans who'd seemingly struggle to demonstrate a vocabulary that reaches three figures and of course there are some dogs who are far from top of the class 😀