Dogs remember names of toys after not seeing them for years, new study finds
Some dogs' memories are better than you think.
A new study published in Biology Letters discovered that some dogs have a long-term memory and can remember the names of their toys after two years of not seeing them.
Shany Dror of Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, the first author of the study and alongside her researchers tested label retention in five border collies named Rico, Squall, Max, Whisky, and Gaia.
For the experiment, each of the dogs’ owners taught each pooch the names of their toys within a week before taking their playthings away for two years from December 2020 to February 2023.
“To make sure that during the test the dogs did not get overexcited due to the presence of the reintroduced toys, [one] day before the test the owners were instructed to leave the toys on the floor and allow the dogs to inspect those for [one hour],” the researchers wrote, also instructing the owners to not engage with the dogs during that time.
After allowing the dogs to inspect their toys, the owners tested their fur babies’ memories by placing some of their “test” toys alongside other new ones in one room. The owners then asked the pups to get their old toys with the name they learned previously.
To confirm the accuracy of the dogs’ memory retainment, the experiment was carried out twice for each dog.
The results revealed that some dogs had a success rate of up to 60% despite the overall average of the canines picking the correct toy 44% of the time.
The team of researchers stressed that not all dogs are the same, even though some dogs can learn object names. However, Dror noted that it could change with owners who often engage in shaping their dogs’ talents.
"The more you invest in your dog, the more you will get back from the relationship," she said, as per The Guardian.