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Remember that old stuffed toy you threw out years ago? But your dog might still remember it.
A new study has found that our furry friends have excellent memories and remember the names of their toys for longer than we might think.
So studyIn a study published in the journal Biology Letters, researchers Shanny Dror, Adam Miklosi and Claudia Fugazza wanted to learn more about dogs and long-term memory, as not much is known about it.
The researchers wanted to know whether dogs were able to retain object associations through repeated use, or whether dogs, like humans, could store associations in their long-term memory.
The study found that some of the smartest dogs, whom the study called “gifted word learners” (GWL) dogs, were able to remember the names of objects even after not seeing the same object for two years.
The study involved five GWL dogs (two females and three males). The study began in December 2020 and involved the dogs being taught the names of 12 toys over the course of a week.
The researchers let the dogs and their owners play with the toys for several months, then stored the toys for two years.
After two years, the researchers took the dogs out one by one, showed them toys and other familiar objects in a room, and asked them to call the toy by name and bring back the test toy.
After the experiment, the researchers found that the dogs were 44% accurate in retrieving their designated toys, with some dogs recording 60% accuracy.
Dr. Claudia Fugazza says Country Living Magazine, “We know that dogs can remember events for at least 24 hours and scents for up to a year, but this is the first study to show that some talented dogs can remember words for at least two years.”
“The results of this study cannot be generalized to other dogs because we only tested gifted word learner (GWL) dogs, who showed a special talent for learning object words.”
Although the study was conducted exclusively on intelligent dogs, it still shows that the ability to store associations in long-term memory is not unique to humans.
Additionally, the discovery could help scientists understand how non-human species retain memories over the long term.
“GWL dogs offer a unique opportunity to examine whether such correlations exist in non-verbal species.” The researchers concluded.
