is that very far off from the standard process of language (or sound) in general, tho? granted, dogs probably have a more baser understanding, like “sound=meaning.” but generally, humans do the same thing. “sound=phone ring” baby cry=distress. and so on. doug knows the rattle of packaged foods generally means some kind of snack is about to be eaten…so he makes himself available for any generosities as soon as he hears any package rattle…i know he doesn’t cognitively deduce “master is eating fruity snacks and i looooves me some fruity snacks,” but he is thinking something like “rattle=numskins.” same as we think “shotgun rack=danger.” etc.
i also think that just like humans, dog benefit from being spoken to more frequently. i know at this point i can just tell doug things like he’s a room mate most of the time. “sorry dude, you can’t go this time” is all i have to say when he sees i’m about to leave. when he thinks he gets to come on a car ride, he goes ape shit like someone just won a car on the price is right. when i say “sorry dude, you gotta stay,” same as i would say to a kid or person, he loses his enthusiasm and goes to lay back down. he also know what “back up a little” means or “go over there.” he also seems to know “DUDE!” means some manner of “i need to chill out” or whatever. and the best is “sorry, guy–you gotta get in the shower.” he HATES showers but knows it’s a woeful aspect of life he must deal with. so he reluctantly and sadly will go get in the stall and wait for me to come bathe him when i say that.
Our Chihuahua (about 5 yrs old now and an ‘indoors-dog’) knows the names of at least 9 people and will reliably go to whoever he is told to ‘go find’, whether they are alone or in a group. This includes him wanting outside so he can go across the street if he is asked to find one of the neighbor’s boys he plays with regularly. More than once I have been asked to prove this and the dog has never failed. Quite fun for him and he seems to enjoy being challenged in finding things when asked. I’m sure he enjoys the reward(s) of praise and belly-rubs for his successes, too, of course.
One time, the wife had walked to store about three blocks away and daughter told him to find her, not knowing she was not still in yard. She had been across road talking to neighbors outside and she thought she’d let him out to play with them. Dog took off down the road(s) and I had to get him from inside the grocery store - he waited for someone to open door, bolted in and found her. Kind of a neat surprise at his tracking her down 
Lesson learned on our part, too (oops!)
I have zero doubt that he (and lots of other dogs/animals) can separate items/people from each other by ‘names’. If I ask him “Where’s a cat?!”, he’ll go nuts running around trying to find one to bark at, and if I do same for a squirrel he focuses his attention upwards into the trees while searching. Different name/animal gets different search behavior, so to speak. He knows the differences, no doubt at all.
Lots of fun for all involved (mostly).
Another funny anecdote: my mom’s former shih tzu learned a lot of words (she was also a complete ditz too-yes a genius ditz of a sort), including “eat”. So everytime someone said that word, such as “Hey Mom, when do we eat?”, it would invariably bring her into the kitchen jumping and barking. So in an attempt to fool her, we started to spell the word out-“EEE AYY TEE”. But she soon caught onto that as well.
I agree with lonizer that dogs can learn not only their own names, but also the names of people in the household.
The poodle I had growing up was a very intelligent dog and learned things very quickly (as most poodles do - they are among the smartest of dog breeds). If my mom was on the first floor of the house and told the dog “Go find [lavenderviolet]” the dog would go upstairs to my bedroom and get me up for school.
My current dog is a poodle mix and she has learned that “Daddy” refers to my fiance.
Yes, same on the name front with my Lab. You say “Jana, where is Papa” and she goes nuts trying to find him. Probably all together about 7 people, 9 if you count her best dog-friends. And then Tabby, the cat, died. If you say “where’s Tabby” she’ll look for her, but in this really sad, dutiful way, as if she knows she won’t find her. 
I’m not sure why their understanding of names would really be any different to our understanding. She knows the name is associated with the person, and there’s not really more to it. That name and that person always belong together, just like the word “biscuit” always means biscuit. You can also tell because of where she goes to look for them. Say “where’s Papa” and she goes to the bottom of the stairs to see if he’s coming down. Say “where’s Floppy” and she goes outside to find next-door’s dog. Same with her own name: it doesn’t matter how you say it, she knows it means her. We have to spell things out so she doesn’t know what you’re saying. It’s SOP now to refer to the beach as the B-E-A-C-H. Even if you say it really quickly she starts going apeshit at the prospect.
No, I think it’s very close. But I think some caution is called for here. Many of the stories told by posters in this thread could be explained in other ways than just canine intelligence (that doesn’t mean the pet owner is wrong, just he may be jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions).
Lest you think this is nitpicking, I refer you to some lab animals like N’kisi, Washoe, and Alex. All were claimed to be able to communicate with humans (or at least their trainers) in a slightly higher language than just “Fido, fetch.” But there is considerable doubt that that is what was actually happening. It may have been due to more mundane causes such as unconscious cueing, experimenter bias, and wishful thinking.
I think it’s great if you can communicate with your pet, but it’s a long ways from sure that they are thinking as humans do.
My dog does respond to common objects and names. She knows her name and the names of the cats (and can tell them apart) and my husband and I. She knows her doggie friend Phoebe’s name, especially when I leash her up and tell her we are going to go play with Phoebe, she gets more excited than usual.
I have tried the experiment where I tell her calmly (with no inflection) to go to spot X (Phoebe’s house, park, library) and see if she will lead me there once out of the house and it doesn’t always work. I vary her walking schedule enough that we don’t use the same route so she can’t predict it.
She’s good with common objects, her hamburger, her teddy bear, etc. I wouldn’t call her the sharpest tool in the box, but she’s very eager to please and was easily trainable.
I once saw a dog respond to pretty complex language, or so it seemed.
“What are you begging for? I cannot get you a treat unless I have my slippers.”
Off the dog ran, returning a few seconds later with a slipper.
“Well this is very good, but where is the other one?”
Off the dog ran again. The following is a direct transcript of what the dog was thinking as he came back with the other slipper: “Fetching a slipper, fetching a slipper, fetching a slipper, fetching a slipper, fetching a – ooh, living room!”
I like to tell the story of how I realized the difference between the thought processes of humans and dogs. I’d been a dog trainer for awhile before I had my daughter and like many another, I thought training children was going to be a lot like that (ho ho).
One of the exercises in advanced formal Obedience is called the Directed Retrieve, where three gloves are laid out widely spaced at the end of the small practice area and the dog must go and get only the one the trainer points to. It is surprisingly hard to teach. Pretty much, you teach them to line up with your feet and look the direction you are looking. Once they focus on a glove that’s the one they’ll retrieve whether it’s the right one or not, so you have to have a specific set of practiced movements to get the bead on the right one the first time.
So my daughter is maybe 16 months old and in a backpack my husband is carrying, and we’re in a museum. There’s an old-fashioned overhead fan, and I point to it and say, look, a fan. She looks at my finger, follows the imaginary line I have drawn from my finger to the fan, sees the fan, and smiles.
That there is the difference. Dogs can only get “look where someone else is looking.” They don’t do abstract. If I said look! and pointed, without looking at the object, a dog would keep looking at my finger forever.
Dogs know their names. Anyone with more than one dog can tell you the dogs know which one is being called. Blackjack understands a lot of words and learns new ones readily. He recognizes the names of people and other dogs. He can learn the names of new objects like toys, and he has an incredible internal clock, he knows exactly when breakfast and dinner time is, and he knows what happens each day of the week. He can understand a lot simply from the tone of my voice, but he also can understand a lot of words. As decribed above, he can’t understand finger pointing, no dog I’ve ever heard of can, but that’s a dog thing. I don’t think finger pointing even registers with dogs, they tend to follow motion and a person’s face and eyes. I can get him to look at something in particular by throwing an imaginary object in that direction.
Ulfreida… I have to disagree with you on one poit (no pun intended!) here. My dogs DEFINTELY know to follow where I am pointing. If I toss a treat and it is missed, I can say 'it’s over there!" ad point toward it and the dogs will definitely go to where I am pointing.
My 2 Gordon Setters will also go lay down on whichever dog bed I point to with the LAY DOWN command. (different from just DOWN, which means drop where you are) If they on the rare occaision go to the wrong bed, I’ll say no, over there and point to the right one, and they will reluctantly get up and follow my finger.
My dog knows her name. She also knows the names of several other dogs, people, and specific toys. “Go get cricket!” sends her to (play) attack the correct dog.
Retrievers are routinely trained to understand directional hand signals. (right, left, farther, closer). This does require focused training, though, not something they pick up on their own.
Are you sure they aren’t using other cues, such as where you are looking? I’m not saying your dogs don’t understand you. But try pointing to something without looking at it yourself, and see what they do.
My dogs understand both directional hand signals and directional voice signals; like retrievers, this is central to having a useful herding dog. But going in a direction they are told to go in, is not the same as the abstract thought required to follow an imaginary line between one point and another. It may seem like an arbitrary distinction but it really isn’t.
Have to say, I’m very sceptical about the bolded part. Are you sure he isn’t picking up on cues?
Please bear in mind everyone, there is a gap between anecdote and controlled experiment.
I have a chihuahua and my girl and I have to spell things so he won’t figure out what we are talking about. For instance I might tell her he needs his nails cut or a bath and he will run and hide someplace. He knows the names of several foods, several neighborhood dogs and cats and most all my friends who are regulars. He also knows his toys by name and will bring you whichever you ask for. No indication sentences mean much he seems to cue off of words very effectively though.
One way to test this would be for someone else to give the word clues, only once, and behind a visual barrier. The dog owner should not be present, either.
A random article should be selected, the command given and the name of the article retrieved noted, including times nothing was retrieved. There should be several trials, and all trials must be included in the final analysis.
I have no doubt that some animals can reliably retrieve some things by name, and I’ve seen supposedly unbiased demonstrations, but anecdotes alone won’t be sufficient to prove it.
Yes they do, I have 7 Jack Russells and when I call one of their names not only do they respond the others look at the dog I am calling.
My ubersmart Bandit seems to understand about 50 words quite well, the other are in the 20 word category.