Why can some dogs learn a vocabulary of hundreds of object names?

Our research is discovering the answer!

Most dogs can learn action cues like “sit” or “down.” But our work has revealed something remarkable: a very small subset of dogs can go much further.

These uniquely Gifted Word Learner (GWL) dogs learn the names of dozens—even hundreds—of object names

such as “frisbee”, “rope” and “Teddy bear” forming vast vocabulaires of object verbal labels.

We discovered that GWL dogs acquire new object names at an astonishing pace. They do this naturally, during everyday play with their owners. No intentional training needed. They not only retain these names for long periods but also extend the labels to categorize their toys, offering a rare window into canine cognition.

Our research explores three central questions:

What makes GWL dogs different from other dogs?
How do they learn object names, and how does this process compare to early word learning in human infants?
How does learning words shape the way dogs mentally represent their world?

Through this work, we aim to better understand the extraordinary abilities of these dogs—and what they can teach us about language, learning, cognition, and the human–animal bond.

Ready to be surprised? Watch what we found so far

Watch more videos below in our gallery.

Our research team

Our group is led by Dr. Claudia Fugazza and Prof. Adam Miklosi and includes Fumi Higaki (PhD student), Andreea Nastase (PhD student), Marina Smagina (visiting PhD student), Dr. Shany Dror (volunteer helper), Agnes Renata Markus (MsC student).

Contact us:
Dr. Claudia Fugazza, geniusdogchallenge.official@gmail.com WhatsApp +393382064951
To see what’s new, follow us on our social media: https://linktr.ee/geniusdogchallenge

Does your dog know his toys by name? Apply to participate in our research!

If your dog knows the names of more than 10 objects or toys, please send us a video along with the information listed below to: geniusdogchallenge.official@gmail.com

Your name and country
Your dog’s name, breed, sex and age
Number of toy names your dog knows
Please include the following consent statement in your email:
I agree to the use of my information for research purpose and consent to being contacted.

How to submit your video:

Please record the video following the guidelines below. Also see the video instruction here

Place all the toys your dog knows on the floor (If your dog knows more than 10 toys, choose any 10 and place those on the floor).

Set the camera at a low angle so that both the toys and the entrance to the room are visible. If you are using a mobile phone, please record the video horizontally.
Step outside the room. From a position where you can not see the toys, ask your dog to bring the toy one by one.
Do not start by asking for the dog’s favorite toy. Instead, ask for the toys in a random order.
When there are only 7 toys left on the floor, please return the previously requested toys (or other toys your dog knows by name) so there are 10 toys on the floor again. Then continue with the remaining items on your list. If you have less than 7 toys, please bring the toys back after every trial.
You do not need to record your dog retrieving all the toys. Showing 5 or 6 successful retrievals is sufficient.
Please do not edit the video.
It is not necessary for the owner to appear in the video, but please make sure that the toy names can be clearly heard. You may use a second camera to film yourself outside the room, but this is not required.

Our Publications

Publications:

Fugazza C., Sommese A., Miklosi A. (2025) Dogs extend verbal labels for functional classification of objects. Current Biology 35, 1-7
Higaki F., Faragó T., Pogány Á., Miklosi A., Fugazza C. (2025) Sound quality impacts dogs’ ability to recognize and respond to playback words. Scientific Reports 15, 14175. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-96824-8
Fugazza C., Jacques E., Nostri S., Kranzelic U., Sommese A., Miklosi A. (2024) Shape and texture biases in dogs’ generalization of trained objects. Scientific Reports 14, 28077, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-72244-y
Dror S., Miklosi A., Fugazza C. (2024) Dogs with a vocabulary of object labels retain them for at least 2 years. Biology Letters https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0208
Dror S., Miklósi Á., Sommese A., Fugazza C. (2023) A citizen science model turns anecdotes into evidence by revealing similar characteristics among Gifted Word Learner dogs. Scientific Reports 13:21747 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-47864-5
Fugazza C., Temesi A., Uccheddu S., Coronas R., Pogány A. (2023) Spontaneous action matching in dog puppies, kittens and wolf pups. Scientific Reports. DOI 10.1038/s41598-023-28959-5
Fugazza C., Turcsan B., Sommese A., Dror S., Temesi A., Miklósi A. (2022) A comparison of personality traits of gifted word learner and typical border collies. Animal Cognition https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-022-01657-x
Dror S., Sommese A., Miklósi A., Temesi A., Fugazza C., (2022) Multisensory mental representation of objects in typical and Gifted Word Learner dogs. Animal Cogntion https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-022-01639-z
Sommese A., Miklósi Á., Pogány Á., Temesi A., Dror S., Fugazza C. (2021) An exploratory analysis of head‐tilting in dogs Animal Cognition DOI: 10.1007/s10071-021-01571-8
Dror S., Miklósi Á., Sommese A., Temesi A., Fugazza C. (2021) Acquisition and long- term memory of object names in a sample of Gifted Word Learner dogs. R. Soc. Open Sci. 8: 210976. DOI: 10.1098/rsos.210976
Fugazza C., Dror S., Sommese A., Temesi A., Miklósi A. (2021) Word learning dogs (Canis familiaris) provide an animal model for studying exceptional performance. Scientific Reports 11:14079
Fugazza C., Andics A., Magyari L., Dror S., Zempléni A., Miklósi A. (2021) Rapid learning of object names in dogs. Scientific Reports, 11:2222 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-81699-2
Fugazza, C., Miklósi, A. (2020): How to make smoke without fire. Minds are not (just) trainable machines. Learning & Behavior, doi : 10.3758/s13420-020-00447-0
Fugazza, C., Miklósi, A. (2020): Depths and limits of spontaneous categorization in a family dog. Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-59965-6

Video Gallery of Genius Dog Challenge

Video abstract for the study: Fugazza, C., Jacques, E., Nostri, S. et al. Shape and texture biases in dogs’ generalization of trained objects. Sci Rep 14, 28077 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-72...

Video abstract for the study: Fugazza, C., Jacques, E., Nostri, S. et al. Shape and texture biases in dogs’ generalization of trained objects. Sci Rep 14, 28077 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-72...
A new study found that dogs trained with the Do as I Do method can imitate human actions from two-dimensional video projections. Dogs’ ability to process and replicate actions observed in 2D video projections aligns with their everyday observational perspective with humans. Fugazza C., Higaki F. (2024) Exploring the use of projected videos to test action matching from different perspectives in dogs. Biologia Futura DOI 10.1007/s42977-024-00222-6
Have you ever wondered why dogs tilt their heads? We are happy to share our insights on this popular, yet unstudied, behaviour! Upon hearing the owners’ request for a familiar toy, Gifted dogs, which are dogs that know toy names, tilted their heads significantly more than typical dogs. We suggest that the difference in the dogs’ behaviour might be related to hearing meaningful words (for the Gifted dogs) and could be a sign of increased attention. Head-tilts could be related to making a cross-modal match in the dogs’ memory (e.g., name to a visual image) upon hearing the name of a toy.
To acquire a vocabulary it is important not only to learn new words but also to remember what has been learned. In this study, we examined whether Gifted Word Learner dogs that know the names of many dog toys will remember the names even after two years. We found that most dogs were able to do so! This suggests that long-term memory of words is not a uniquely human skill. This is a video abstract of the peer-reviewed article: Shany Dror, Ádám Miklósi, and Claudia Fugazza (2024) "Dogs with a vocabulary of object labels retain them for at least 2 year", Biology Letters, 20: 20240208. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0208
Some dogs have the exceptional talent of learning many, many names of dog toys. But these Gifted Word Learner dogs are rare; until now, very little was known about them. In this study, we documented the ability of 41 Gifted Word Learner dogs and found what they have in common. This video abstract is based on the article "A citizen science model turns anecdotes into evidence by revealing similar characteristics among Gifted Word Learner dogs", by Shany Dror, Ádám Miklósi, Andrea Sommese, and Claudia Fugazza, published in Scientific Reports, 2023 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-47864-5
Does your dog like toys? What do you think she imagines when thinking of her favorite toy? In this new study, published in the Journal of Animal Cognition, we examine how typical family dogs and dogs that have a unique gift for learning toy names, think about their toys. We found that the dogs form a “multi-model mental image” of their toys, which basically means that when thinking about their toys, dogs think of the toys’ different features, such as the way it looks and smells.‎
Young children learn new words very fast. ‎Can dogs do that too?‎ New research shows how exceptionally talented dogs can learn the names of objects after hearing them only four times. However, they were only able to learn the new words when they heard them in a social context while playing with their owners. The study also found that the dogs' memory of the new words rapidly decayed ‎ after 10 minutes. Check out this link for the full study: www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81699-2 ‎
Hogyan lehetséges, hogy egyesek kivételesen tehetségesek?‎ Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein és Mozart – mindegyiküknek volt valamilyen különleges ‎tehetsége.‎ De honnan jön mindez?‎ A tudósok hosszú évtizedek óta próbálják megérteni, mi tesz egyes embereket ‎kivételesen tehetségessé.‎ Ez az új, Scientific Reports folyóiratban publikált kutatás kutyák egy egyedülálló ‎csoportja esetében különleges tehetséget ír le, nevezetesen a tárgynevek ‎megtanulásának képességét. Ez az izgalmas felfedezés különleges lehetőséget kínál: ‎a kutya jó modell faj lehet a kivételes tehetség megnyilvánulásainak megértéséhez.‎
A new study just published in Animal Cognition reveals that those rare dogs that are gifted in learning object verbal labels are more playful than typical dogs
How fast can dogs learn the names of new toys? And for how long can they remember them? Finally we present the results of the Genius Dog Challenge experiment! During the challenge, we tested 6 exceptional dogs on their ability to rapidly learn the names of new toys. Two months after the challenge we tested the dogs again to see what they remember. Want to see how the dogs did during the challenge? Check out the Genius Dog Challenge 2020 playlist to see live videos from the tests: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN... Want to learn more about Genius dogs and what they can teach us? Check out our Hard Core Canine Science playlist. Here we share with you the results as they were presented by Shany Dror, in the 2021 easter conference of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
This two-part video abstract summarizes the findings of our study published in Scientific Reports, which explores how sound quality affects dogs' ability to recognize and respond to familiar words. Part 1 presents the experimental design and results of Studies 1 and 2, comparing dogs' responses to direct speech, loudspeaker playback, and AIC button playback. Part 2 covers Study 3, focusing on Gifted Word Learner dogs and their ability to learn new toy names from recorded speech and generalize this knowledge to live verbal interactions.