How Much Does My Dog Understand?

In my house, dogs are family. They get their own birthday celebrations and, despite my efforts to train them otherwise, they even get to sleep in the bed. I also talk to them, sometimes in praise, other times in a desperate attempt to convince them that it is not, in fact, in their best interest to eat crayons ... again. But how much of what I say to them do they actually understand? Do they remember the things I’ve told them? I know that I love my dog, but does my dog love me or just the food that I provide?

How Many Words Can a Dog Know?

Most dog knows what you mean when you say “sit” or “stay,” and mine certainly knows the word “no,” but how much more can they understand? I know an English bulldog whose owners had to stop using the word “dinner” when doing their meal planning because their pup would think it was time to eat. For a while they switched to “supper” but he eventually learned that too.

Experts suggest that dogs on average understand somewhere between 100 and 200 words, a level of vocabulary typical of human 2-3 year olds. Some dogs, like those who live with deaf people, are also known to respond to hand signals even without verbal communication.

How dogs understand different words, however, is not well understood. For example, does your dog know that “shoe” is a thing you wear to protect your feet while walking outside? Or does your dog think the word “shoe” means “bring me that object I keep by the door”?  

Common lore among dog lovers says that the tone of your voice is all that matters when communicating with your dog. You can say anything, and as long as you use a happy voice, your dog will understand that she or he has been a good dog.

In 2016, researchers from Budapest, Hungary put this hypothesis to the test by training 13 domestic dogs to sit in an fMRI scanner. The fMRI technique, short for functional magnetic resonance imaging, monitors brain activity by measuring changes in blood flow to different areas of the brain.

The researchers monitored the brain activity for the group of mostly border collies and golden retrievers as they heard typical words of approval as well as neutral words like conjunctions both in neutral and praiseful tones. According to their work published in the journal Science, when the dogs heard words of praise, in either tone of voice, activity was noted in the left side of the brain, suggesting that the left hemisphere in a dog’s brain processes language,...

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