Results: What do dogs understand?

(Souce: PetMD) While dog owners already know that the words we say and how we say them have a major impact on our pets, science is now proving it to be true. A Hungarian research group completed a study published in Science magazine. It reports that dogs, like people, use the left hemisphere of their brain to process words, a right hemisphere brain region to process intonation, and praising activates dogs' reward center only when both words and intonation match." If you say "I love you" in a neutral tone of voice, your dog won't have the same response to it as if you were to say those same words, but with a more cheerful disposition. Did you hear about this study before today?

13 dogs were trained by an ethologist, dog trainer, and an author of the study, to lay completely motionless in an fMRI brain scanner. fMRI provided a non-invasive, harmless way of measuring the dog's brains. They measured dogs' brain activity as they listened to their trainer's speech. Dogs heard praise words in praising intonation, praise words in neutral intonation, and also neutral conjunction words, meaningless to them, in praising and neutral intonations. Like human brains, a dog's brain responds more effectively if both words and intonation match. Do you think that the results can be conclusive with only 13 dogs tested?

Vets say that dogs have the capacity to understand short words and phrases that they know (such as "come" or "sit and stay"), but more complex language or "nonsense words" will have no effect on them because there's no intrinsic reward. Even when you know that a dog won't understand every word you say, do you talk to your dog?

Our body language and energy say lots to our dogs. They can easily recognize how we feel. Do you agree?