Dogs use their senses to recognize their toys

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Welcome to our Peculiar Pet Facts series, where we investigate the quirks of our pets and explore the science behind them.

Think about your dog’s favorite toy. Can you imagine what it looks like? Have you thought about how it smells or feels? Probably not. But new research suggests your dog probably does.

The “Go Find Him” ​​Test

When dogs are asked to find a toy, do they just visualize what it looks like or do they use multiple senses to tell the difference between toys? This is the question posed by the authors of a study recently published in animal cognition. The researchers answered their question by asking 14 dogs to find toys in a bright room and a dark room.

To begin the study, each owner trained their dog for 5-10 minutes to retrieve a particular toy and generously rewarded it when the dog got it right. They then placed this toy among four “distractor” toys in the next room. The owner asked his dog to fetch the toy and bring it back to him. They repeated the exercise 10 times, each time mixing the target toy and the distractor toys on the floor. Then they repeated the test with the toy room in complete darkness.

All of the dogs succeeded above the chance level of getting their toy in the light and dark rooms (meaning they weren’t just guessing and accidentally getting it right). There was a dog, Scotch, who didn’t do so well the first time around. But after repeating the training with a new toy, they got the toy more than 7/10 times, which was considered a success. Yay Scotch!

The researchers found that the dogs were just as successful at retrieving the toy in the bright room as they were in the dark room. However, the dogs spent longer searching for the toy and took longer to pick it up from the darkened room. They also spent more time sniffing as they searched the darkened room.

What about “gifted” dogs?

Next, the researchers focused on four dogs with the exceptional ability to know the names of their toys. These dogs were referred to as gifted word-learning (GWL) dogs (more on GWL dogs later). They were part of the first study, but they were no better at finding the toy than “typical” family dogs.

For this study, 20 named toys that were familiar to GWL dogs were randomly selected and scattered on the floor. The researchers did the same light and dark experiment, only this time the dogs were asked to find the toy by name.

The dogs performed above chance at retrieving the named toy in the light and dark rooms, and there was no difference in success between the rooms. Like the first study, GWL dogs spent more time searching in the dark and more time sniffing while searching in the dark.

What does all this mean?

The results showed that in these studies vision was the preferred method of searching for the toy because the dogs didn’t spend a lot of time sniffing around when the lights were on. But if the lights were turned off, the dogs could switch to other senses, like smell, to find their toy. Touch (nose, whiskers) may also be one of the senses they used to find toys in the dark, but the researchers couldn’t conclude from this study.

There was no difference between “typical” dogs and dogs who were good at learning words, so being smart enough to know the names of the toys didn’t help with this test. Research suggests that when GWL dogs hear a word, they think about what the object looks and smells like, and possibly also what it looks like. This video summarizes the study and you can see some of the dogs looking for their toys.

The rapid learning of a gifted dog

Another study by the same research group asked if six gifted word-learning dogs, with known vocabulary, could learn the names of 12 new toys in one week. Researchers conducted an international search for dogs knowing the names of their toys and recruited six border collies who were pets.

Owners were asked to teach their dog the names of 12 new toys in a week. How much time he spent training his dog was up to the owner, with four owners playing with their dogs and naming the toys for around 30 minutes a day. To test the dogs’ knowledge, the 12 new toys plus eight old toys whose names the dog already knew were placed in a different room from the owner’s. The owner then asked the dog to get the new toys by name.

The dogs were allowed to play with the new toys for one more week and then the toys were put away. After a month, six toys were randomly selected and the dogs were allowed to play with them for three minutes to release any excitement about retrieving the toys. The six toys were placed in another room with eight old toys and the fetch X study was repeated. A month later (two months in storage), they repeated the task with the remaining six toys.

In the first rapid learning test, two of the dogs correctly retrieved all 12 toys and four dogs correctly retrieved 11 toys. For the month-long memory test, five dogs were given all six toys and one dog was given three toys, which was not above chance. In the two-month memory test, three dogs received all six toys, one dog received five toys, and two dogs did not exceed the chance level.

The researchers concluded that dogs who were good at learning words could learn up to 12 new object names in a week (and possibly learn even more). Most GWL dogs could remember the names of their new toys after one month, and half of the dogs could remember all of them after two months. That’s impressive considering four out of six owners only spent about 30 minutes a day training their dog during the week-long training period.

A gifted dog’s skills in learning words are remarkable, but it’s also impressive that a “typical” dog can find a specific toy in the dark. Dogs may prefer to find things with their vision, but if you play hide and seek with them in the dark, they will find you!

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