Gifted word-learning dogs can remember the names of their toys for years

This is a study which confirms perhaps what some lucky people might already know namely that gifted dogs can remember the names of their favourite toys for two years or more and therefore have excellent memories.

And almost all dogs can learn words linked to actions as we also know because they are very trainable. They understand words such as "sit" and "down". But only a small group of gifted dogs described as "gifted word-learners" can learn a wide range of words associated with particular objects.

The research was carried out at Eotvos University. In this study, the researchers challenge the owners of six border college to teach their pets the names of 12 new toys within seven days. The study showed that the dogs were able to learn the names and retrieve the correct toy when requested to do so.

Once the tests had been completed the owners were asked to hide the toys and store them out of sight. They then waited two years to see whether the dogs could remember them.

"We waited two years and then decided to test the dogs again to see if they still remember the toy names."

There was no rehearsal as I understand it. One of the six dogs had died so the remaining five were tested. And in some instances some toys had been lost so in all three dogs were tested in respect of 12 toys with one tested on 11 toys and one dog on five toys.

"After two years, we had a hard time remembering the names of the toys but just the dogs. They did not seem to struggle."

Four dogs remember the names of between 60% and 75% of the toys. They confirmed this by naming the toy in the spoken word followed by the dogs picking up the correct toy out of a line-up of toys. They did this correctly on 44% of attempts.

This was "significantly above chance level". The report is that a dog faced with 12 toys "would be expected to get it right 8.3% of the time if it was simply guessing, while a dog faced with five toys would get it right 20% of the time based on chance alone". That quote comes from the Times newspaper of September 4, 2024.

The study is published in the journal Biology Letters.

It said that "When comparing the dogs' group performance in the present two-year memory test with that of the one and two-month memory test, it appears there was no significant reduction in their recall of the labelled objects."

The head of the research group, Dr. Claudia Fugazza, said: 

"We know that dogs can remember events for at least 24 hours and odours for up to one year, but this is the first study showing that some talented dogs can remember words for at least two years."

She added that: 

"The findings are our current study cannot be generalised to other dogs because we only tested gifted word-than dogs i.e. individuals that show a special talent for acquiring object words." 

Border collies were found to be the most gifted breed when it comes to vocabulary and the naming of objects. German shepherds, Pekinese and the mini Australian shepherd dogs may have the same talents.

There was a global search for gifted dogs to conduct the test apparently. They were all found to know more than 28 toys by name with some being able to recognise more than 100 toys, remarkably.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

Reason why a non-pedigree cat is called a moggie in an infographic

Click on the infographic to see it fill the screen if you are viewing on a cell phone.

Infographic by MikeB.

The source is the book Catlore by Dr Desmond Morris. Here is some information about him as he deserves it. The information was compiled by an AI computer searching the internet.

Desmond John Morris, born on January 24, 1928, is an English zoologist, ethologist, and surrealist painter. His multifaceted career spans various domains, making him a fascinating figure. Let’s delve into the details:

Early Life and Education:

• Morris was born in Purton, Wiltshire, to Marjorie (née Hunt) and children’s fiction author Harry Morris.
• His interest in natural history and writing blossomed during his time in Swindon.
• He attended Dauntsey’s School, a boarding school in Wiltshire.
• After serving in the British Army for national service, he pursued fine arts and zoology at the University of Birmingham.
• In 1951, he embarked on a doctorate at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, focusing on animal behavior.

Career Highlights:

• Curator of Mammals at London Zoo: He held this position after leaving his role as the host of Granada TV’s Zoo Time.
• Research Fellow at the University of Oxford: His research centered on the reproductive behavior of birds.
• Television Presenter: He scripted and hosted over 500 episodes of Zoo Time and 100 episodes of Life in the Animal World for BBC2.
• Surrealist Artist: Morris’s artistic endeavors included directing surrealist films and exhibiting paintings and drawings created by common chimpanzees.
• Author: His most renowned work is the 1967 book The Naked Ape, which delves into human sociobiology.
• Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer: In 1964, he delivered the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on Animal Behavior.

Notable Works:

• The Naked Ape: This ground-breaking book explores human behaviour from an evolutionary perspective.
• Zoo Time: His television programs, including Zoo Time, brought zoology to a wider audience.
• Surrealist Art: Morris’s artistic expression extended beyond science, and he exhibited alongside luminaries like Joan Miró.
• Human Zoo: Another thought-provoking work that examines human behavior in a societal context.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Dragon Dictate software incorrectly capitalizes 'tiger, 'lion' and 'jaguar'

Dragon Dictate, the voice to typed word software that I often use, incorrectly capitalises tiger, lion and jaguar. These are three of the big, roaring cats. They should not be capitalised as they are ordinary nouns. I suspect that the software capitalises these words because they are often used by people in circumstances when the word could be capitalised such as a sports team.

To pick one at random: Melbourne Tigers, a Melbourne basketball team. The word 'tiger' should be capitalised when used in this way.

As for the jaguar (the cat) the word is capitalised when referring to the car brand. This is probably why Dragon Dictate, by default, capitalises it. It believes the word is more used to describe the car than the cat.

As a Dragon Dictate user you have to customise the software to rectify these defects.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Should 'tiger' be capitalized?

No, the word 'tiger' should not be capitalised as it is not a proper noun (as shown in the title to this short post). A proper noun is a noun that serves as the name for a SPECIFIC place, person, or thing. 

An example would be the word 'Bengal' which is an historic region in the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal.

Interestingly, the most common species of tiger is written 'Bengal tiger', with the first half capitalized as it is a distinct place in Asia and the second half not capitalised as the word 'tiger' refers generically to the species of wild cat called a tiger.

You often see this 'hybrid' labelling of the wild cat species. For example, the Andean mountain cat or the Chinese desert cat or the now extinct Caspian tiger.

To distinguish them from common nouns, proper nouns are always capitalised in English. Common nouns are words for types of things, people, and places, such as 'dog', 'professor', 'city', and 'tiger'.

Finally, there is a certain amount of flexibility in this and English grammar has evolved and continues to do so. 

For example, Dr Desmond Morris in his book Cat World would write 'Caspian Tiger' or 'Bengal Tiger' with a capital 'T'. That's because he was capitalising the entire name which was normal in 1996 when the book was published. 

It sort of looks better if we are honest but it is grammatically incorrect nowadays.

Should 'jaguar' be capitalized?

No, the word "jaguar" should not be capitalized as the word is not a proper noun. It's interesting because I write these articles using speech-to-text software called Dragon Dictate. 

Dragon Dictate capitalises the word 'jaguar' and I don't understand why. It appears to be an error in the software or it is because these words are often used in a human context such as naming a sports team e.g. "the Jaguars are playing the Bobcats tomorrow". Sports teams often adopt the name of a wild cat species for their name. Under these circumstances 'jaguar' is capitalised as it refers to a proper noun: the name of a sports team.

The software also capitalises the words 'tiger' and 'lion'. But this is incorrect, strictly speaking.

Black jaguar - melanistic jaguar. Photo: The Big Cat Sanctuary from a video by them.

RELATED: Should 'veterinarian' be capitalised?

Although some authors incorrectly still capitalise tiger and jaguar. Often you will see it in old books when grammatical conventions were different. 

With respect to tigers, if you name the region then that name is capitalised such as "Siberian tiger".

An example of a sentence with the word jaguar in it would be: "The jaguar at London Zoo is beautiful".

It's important to note, though, that grammar evolves. Things change over time. The current policy is not the capitalise the names of the big cats. However, you will still see these names capitalised. It's not a big error.

The reason, by the way, is that they are not proper nouns but common nouns. You only capitalise proper nouns such as the name of a place. Common nouns refers to a generic person, place or thing within a group.

Should 'leopard' be capitalized?

No, the word "leopard" should not be capitalised because it is a common noun but there are some exceptions which I discuss below when the word becames part of an individual cat's name. 

None of the wild cat species should be capitalised including the lion and tiger. It's interesting, however, that you still see the names of wild cat species sometimes capitalised. 

I believe that there was a convention perhaps a hundred years ago when these nouns were capitalized. Grammar, after all, is an artificial convention. It is not an absolute set of rules set in stone. 

Humans decide what is and what isn't acceptable in terms of grammar and the current thinking is that the word "leopard" should not be capitalised and neither should any other name of the wild cat species. 

Sometimes, however, you will see a lion that has been named because they are famous i.e. 'Cecil the Lion'. Clearly, the whole name should be capitalised as all names are. The whole name is 'Cecil the Lion'. The intervening 'the' should stay in lowercase.

Sometimes man-eating leopards have been named such as the the Leopard of Rudraprayag; a leopard reputed to have killed over 125 people. It was eventually killed by hunter and author Jim Corbett who has a tiger reserve named after him in the north of India.

The cat has been given a name and the full name is as stated. In this case the word 'leopard' is capitalized as it is part of a proper name (proper noun). Once again the intervening 'of' is in lowercase.

Amur leopard. Photo in the public domain.

And when there is a prefix which tells you where the cat is from, the pre-fix should be capitalized as is the case for: Amur leopard and Siberian tiger for instance.

Should veterinarian be capitalized?

No, neither the word "veterinarian" nor the shortened version, "vet" should be capitalized (capitalised) in modern English. By "capitalized" I mean the first letter of the word is in upper case. The first letter of words should be capitalized under certain rules. These rules have evolved over the years. English has become much less formal.  Accordingly, the rule on capitalizing the first letter has become less demanding.

Animal doctor (veterinarian) with young cat in vet clinic. Photo: Pixabay.

Places and geographic terms are started with an upper case letter. "New York" is one example. "London" is another and "North America" is a typical example.

The word "veterinarian" describes a profession, no more. You wouldn't call a train driver a "Train Driver", would you? The fact that a veterinarian has a better status (some would say) in society does not make any difference.

Two last points. The word "vet" can also mean a person who has retired from the armed forces (short for "veteran"). It is better therefore to spell out the entire word on the internet so that Google can understand its meaning.

The word "internet" can be spelled with a capitalized first letter - "Internet". But modern English, particularly internet English favours ease and speed hence lower case.

Here is an example in a sentence. "My veterinarian is very good with cats. His veterinary practice is just down the road".

Sometimes people refer to veterinarians as "animal doctors". Veterinarians themselves like to be referred to as doctors because they feel that they have the same status as doctors.



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