Dogs know words for their favorite toys

Dogs may know more than they let on. Pet dogs’ brains displayed neural signs of surprise when their owners showed them an unexpected toy. The findings, published March 22 in Current Biology, suggest that dogs create mental concepts of objects.

“Anyone who has ever interacted very much with a dog probably is not that surprised to know that dogs understand that your speech is referring to at least a few common objects,” says Ellen Lau, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland in College Park. But some people may have assumed this sort of “understanding” is just a simple, almost reflexive reaction to the sound of the word. “It’s

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