Gifted dogs can remember the names of their favourite toys.
Border collies have good memories
Almost all pooches are capable of learning words such as "sit" and "down" but a small group of "gifted word-learner" dogs can expand their vocabulary to include a wide range of terms for particular objects.
Experts at Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary challenged the owners of six dogs, all border collies, to teach their canines the names of 12 new toys in a week in 2020 - with all of the animals performing well at the task.
Five of the dogs were tested again two years later and it was found that they had no problems memorising the names of the toys.
Dr. Claudia Fugazza, head of the research group, said: "We know that dogs can remember events for at least 24 hours and odours up 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: "The findings of our current study cannot be generalised to other dogs because we only tested gifted word-learner dogs, individuals that show a special talent for acquiring object words."