“Where’s your red ball? Get the squeaky chicken!” Many dogs demonstrate a remarkable ability to recognize their favorite toys by name. Recent research indicates that dogs who excel in learning words can also mentally categorize toys based on their function during play, as revealed by a groundbreaking study. Notably, these intelligent dogs can classify new toys solely through their play usage, without needing verbal or physical instructions.
This research, published on September 18 in Current Biology, adds to the expanding body of evidence showcasing the intricately complex cognitive functions present within canine brains.
“The inspiration for this study originated from a previous experiment wherein a dog was able to categorize her own toys into groups like balls, ropes, and rings. Remarkably, she could even classify unfamiliar toys into these categories,” explains Claudia Fugazza, an animal behavior researcher at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. “We aimed to investigate whether dogs could categorize toys strictly based on their use during play, rather than by their physical similarities.”
The research focused on dogs known as gifted word learners, particularly pet dogs such as border collies, who have gained a reputation for their impressive vocabulary of toy names acquired through spontaneous, playful interactions at home. Fugazza and her research team enlisted 11 gifted word learners and their owners for this study, with seven dogs ultimately completing the entire process.
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The experiments took place in the dogs’ own homes. Initially, owners engaged with their dogs using games labeled either “throw” or “pull,” which corresponded respectively to fetch and tug-of-war, utilizing a diverse array of toys, from squeakers to ropes and plushies, while verbally naming each activity. The toys were randomly assigned categories; their physical characteristics did not dictate their function.
After successfully associating each toy with its respective verbal activity, the dogs were then invited to play with new toys under similar conditions, but this time without any verbal cues from their owners.
In the final phase of the study, dog owners instructed their pets to “bring me a pull” or “bring me a throw” from the toy pile to assess whether the dogs could apply the learned labels to the new toys based solely on their experiential understanding. Correct selections among the new toys would imply that the dogs were generalizing their functional knowledge from familiar to unfamiliar items.
The dogs overwhelmingly performed well, selecting the correct novel toys in an average of 31 out of 48 trials, despite never hearing the spoken categories associated with those specific new items. Most errors occurred when a dog inadvertently selected an old pull or throw toy that had been previously labeled during the training phase.
Previous studies investigating whether animals can categorize objects by their function often utilized highly trained captive animals. According to Fugazza, “This is the first study to examine this cognitive ability in animals within their natural settings—specifically, in dogs’ home environments during play with their owners.” Earlier research also struggled to distinguish between physical and functional cues that could influence the dogs’ categorization. This new research concentrated solely on dynamic, social cues—the manner in which owners engaged with toys.
When compared to human infants, the dogs’ ability to label function aligns with that of a toddler. “The fact that this learning unfolded naturally, without the confines of a lab environment involving extensive training, indicates that dogs’ capacity to deduce function from context is not only more advanced but also more ecologically valid than previously understood,” notes Vanessa Woods, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University and director of the Duke Puppy Kindergarten. “This implies that dogs are not simply memorizing words, but are capable of applying them in a way that reflects a deeper level of categorization.”
Future research will likely probe the nature of other mental categories that dogs are capable of forming and the brain mechanisms behind these processes. “It’s thrilling to witness dogs demonstrate recognition, memory, and inference,” says Fugazza. “The cognitive processing involved in their actions is considerable.” While her research focused on gifted word learners—her “ambassadors to understanding dog cognition,” as she describes them—Fugazza is hesitant to conclusively assert that all dogs possess this functional-labeling capacity. “However, I remain open to that possibility.”
