Or are they just responding to the tone of your voice?
I think they do, since I’ve seen dogs respond when someone said their name in conversation with another human.
i’ve heard they recognize about 20 words, maybe monosyllabic or the last syllable.
IANAD
My dog Toy sure did, she would respond to her name from all humans… friendilliy.
We have two standard poodles. They know which I’m calling if I call just one so they must recognize something about their name means them.
I tried this with the family beagle way back when. His name was Arrow, and one day when he was sleeping, I slowly reeled off a list of names in the same tone. “John,” “Poochie” etc. No reaction whatsover until I said “Arrow” about seventh down. He immediately perked up.
My Maltese is not very bright (but she’s sooo adorable). Yet her ears pop up whenever we say her name in conversation.
Oh yes, I’m thoroughly convinced that they do. And I’m sure they understand more than 20 words, too. I think the more you talk to them, the more they understand. I have 5 dogs, and if I call Nick by name, only Nick responds. If I call Bunny, only Bunny responds. They also recognize their multiple nicknames.
I think dogs are smarter than many give them credit for being.
i can’t link the youtube vid because my DSL gets craaaaazy slow during storms, but search “amazing intelligent animals” or something along those lines (it’s a BBC documentary, i think, and it’s Part 2).
there’s a segment on a dog who has a vocab over 800 words.
they took 800 different toys and named them all, then taught the dog the names. then a guy will lay a group out on a blanket away from him where he cannot give any visual cues. he will say what he wants the dog to get (again, without motion or glances or any cues at all) and the dog will get the thing.
to test it further, in the segment in real, live time, they add in a brand new word and a brand new doll. he tells the dog to get that doll, and it takes a moment for the dog to realize whatever that new word is (it was ‘meow’,) it didn’t correspond to any known animals or known words. so through the process of elimination (in the dog’s mind–it took a few minutes looking over the various toys before settling on the correct one), the dog figured out what was right. pretty amazing.
another similar dog was on the NOVA special Decoding Dogs.
however, i do think dogs vary individually in intelligence and you might have one that knows negative five words or some like the ones above.
my ex’s idiot chi would respond to tones (hey ya little idiot! c’mere you stupid donkeymonkey!) she didn’t care what you said so much as how you said it.
my dog Doug, just now, didn’t reply to even look up to “penis!,” “banana!,” or “Dorky!” but when i quietly said “doug,” he looked up. he’s a dobie and pretty smart.
i posted here before about how he concerns himself with my sneezes–but only my real ones. i can make a fake sneeze sound and he won’t respond. i can blare out “IMSNEEZING” to the cadence and tone of a real sneeze, he doesn’t care. but if i sneeze a real sneeze–even one of the quiet, internalized ones–he comes running to see what the deal is.
dogs are awesome/weird.
*IANAD made me laugh.
i had a kind of crazy girl trying to send me messages on any chat programs she could catch me on for a while. finally i replied “iu am ddo0gg. ithis iuwsd dog anjimalk typoimjng, masrtger ius dead[=, masrtere ois daed on grrounjfd,”
My cat reacted when she heard her name spoken on a TV show (“Nefurtari” is not something that comes up often).
That sounds like Chaser, the border collie, from Australia.
*
For one amazing dog, the words “sit,” “fetch,” and “roll over” aren’t the limits of her language – they’re only the beginning. Six-year-old female border collie Chaser has been trained by her owner to understand more than 1,000 words, along with simple sentences.
Chaser’s owner, John Pilley, has spent years training and testing the limits of her intelligence. The 82-year-old psychology professor used children’s toys and other objects to teach Chaser nouns, and she’s still learning new things. *
bingo.
There’s also “Betsy” (not her real name - it’s apparently a closely guarded secret). What most amazed me in this video was not the dog’s command of vocabulary, but her ability to connect a relatively abstract concept like a scale model or drawing to an actual toy. As they say there, it’s about equal to a two-year-old child.
Missed the 5-minute mark: I knew I’d seen another video of Chaser as well, also relating to more difficult concepts. Here she is combining verbs and objects: Chaser Responds to the Combination of Verb and Noun Phrases - YouTube
Most dogs seem to recognise the word, as they will respond to their name when spoken with a variety of intonations by a number of people. Quite what the name means to the dog is difficult to tell, but it’s likely to be closer to “hey” than “I am Bert the dog”. Dogs are often trained to respond to a clicker in the same way as hearing their name.
Highly trained dogs such as Chaser are impressive, but my 2 1/2 year old nephew can do a 40 piece jigsaw without help, express sentiments such as “I’m sad because Michael-Michael has gone home”, and doesn’t believe me when I say I got him cranberries from the moon, even when I make rocket noises from behind a closed door.
my dogs know each other’s names as well.
once I asked “where’s Fritz?” and my other two dogs looked behind the chair…and there he was.
We have three dogs. Outside, I call them one by one and have them sit in a line. I can then say one of their names and “down” and she will lay down, while the other two remain in their sit. At their mealtimes, I give their food in varying order, calling one, telling her to sit, placing the bowl down and then telling her “ok, eat”. Then repeat for the other two.
It might seem overly strict, but they really seem to enjoy the structured activities.
In addition to their names, there are certain words that set them off in a frenzy. Squirrel, boat, cookie are the main offenders.
There could be a world of difference between “responding to a sound” and “knowing that it is their name and refers to them.” Certainly they can learn to understand the sound it makes and how the same sound is slightly altered by different people, but who’s to say it’s any more than just pattern recognition of a frequently-heard sound? A dog’s name is probably the most frequently-heard sound in the house.
If your cookies are ever stolen by two squirrels in a speedboat, you could really be in trouble.