“This post contains affiliate links, and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.”
Remember that worn-out stuffed toy you threw away a few years ago? No? Well, chances are, your dog may still remember them.
A new study found that our furry friends have great memory and can actually remember the names of their toys for longer than we might think.
In the study, published in journal Biology Letters, the team of researchers, Shany Dror, Ádám Miklósi and Claudia Fugazza, wanted to learn more about dogs and long-term memory since little is known about it.
The researchers wanted to know if dogs can retain their associations of objects due to repeated use, or if they’re like us, humans, and are able to store associations in long-term memory.
Results from the study found that some of the smartest of dogs, referred to as gifted word learner (GWL) dogs in the study, can retain object names, even if they haven’t seen the same object for two years.
Five GWL dogs (two females, and three males) participated in the study. And the study’s experiment started in December 2020 where the dogs were taught the names of 12 toys in 1 week.
The researchers let the dogs, along with their owners, play with the toys for a few months before storing the toys away for two years.
Two years later, the researchers brought the dogs out individually, showed them the toys, along with other objects familiar with the dogs, in the room. They then asked the dogs to retrieve the test toys by calling out the toy’s name.
After the test, the researchers found that the dogs were accurate in retrieving the toy specified 44% of the time, while some even had a 60% accuracy rate.
Dr Claudia Fugazza tells Country Living Magazine, “We know that dogs can remember events for at least 24 hours and odors for up to one year but this is the first study showing that some talented dogs can remember words for at least two years.”
“The findings of our current study cannot be generalised to other dogs because we only tested gifted word learners (GWL) dogs, individuals that show a special talent for acquiring object words.”
And while the research was only done on smart dogs, it’s still shows that the ability to store associations in long-term memory is not uniquely human.
Furthermore, this discovery can further help scientists learn how other species that aren’t human retain their memories in the long term.
“GWL dogs provide a unique opportunity to examine whether such correlations may also exist in a species that does not possess language,” the researchers concluded.
