There’s a clever boy! Dogs may have memories as good as young children, study finds
- Dogs can remember something they did an hour ago and repeat it when told to
- Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, researchers trained ten dogs to repeat tasks
- Half of the dogs could repeat their last action after an hour in a pet carrier
Dogs may have memories as good as very young children, a study has found.
They can remember something they did an hour ago and repeat it when told to, which makes them as clever as young children in understanding and remembering what they do during the day.
Researchers from the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary trained ten dogs to obey commands or perform tasks and then do it again when told to ‘repeat’.
Researchers from the Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, trained ten dogs to obey commands. They found dogs are as just clever as young children in remembering and understanding what they do in the day (file photo)
Owners then surprised the dogs with the ‘repeat’ command on a normal day.
They waited for the dog to spontaneously perform an action. When they said ‘repeat’ 20 seconds later, nine of the ten dogs did the same thing again. After a minute, seven did so.
Even after being in a pet carrier for an hour, half the dogs could repeat their last action.
The authors of the study, published in Scientific Reports, say this shows dogs are aware of their actions because they even repeated ones they had not been trained to do and only when told to ‘repeat’.
Lead author Dr Claudia Fugazza, from the university, said: ‘This does not come from training, but from dogs being a social species which have now evolved through hundreds of years spent with humans in a complex environment.’