Gifted dogs classify toys by function, study finds

A study in Current Biology reports that some “gifted word learner” dogs can learn category words that refer to how toys are used (such as tugging versus fetching) and extend those labels to new objects that serve the same function. In tests, these dogs chose the correct toy by function even when it looked different, a pattern reminiscent of how human infants group objects by purpose during early language learning.

Study: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)01079-6

Other articles:

• https://nautil.us/some-dogs-can-learn-new-linguistic-tricks-1238106/
• https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dogs-with-large-vocabularies-can-understand-category-words-not-just-names/