Do horses know the names humans give them?

[TriPolar]

@solosam

Dogs do not know their names. What the dog hears is a command that says “Give me your attention.” People assume that a dog understands their name because from our point of the view the difference is very slight.

When you teach a dog their “name,” what you have actually done is conditioned them to associate the noise with the expectation that you are about to do something that concerns them… or a noise that they should go find whatever object or person you’ve “named.”

Likewise for cats, and horses, and everything else short of primates. All they hear is a noise that means, “Listen up.”

Sorry, but as mentioned before, dogs can recognize their name spoken by someone unknown, and recognize the names of others. There’s some pretty good indications that dogs at some level grasp the concept of a name as an identifier. It’s more than just simple conditioning.