11 ms·

Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

319 points by pseudolus 2y ago

AStonesThrow 2y ago
At work I often learned the full names and other details about dozens of coworkers, customers, whatever, even if I didn't need to know. A few years after leaving wherever, I begin to forget even the simplest names, and I consider this as a blessing, as if Agent K set the flashy-thing in my eyes and I've returned to an ordinary life.
- dboreham 2y ago
  For me typically some attribute remains in memory after the name fades: "white-teeth marketing dude" or "guy obsessed with keyboards". I suppose that's how names started: Miller, Shepard, etc. As a corollary to this if I'm going into a business situation where I think it would be useful to be remembered, I'll try to wear something notable -- brightly colored shoes, something like that. Imagining the other parties discussing "that bloke, what was his name?? who? Um, the one with the orange shoes. Oh yes".
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Nathan Whitetoothdouche, Jeff Analkeyboards. But isn't the orange shoes thing a classic spy tactic to get people to ignore your face? Now all they remember about you is your shoes. Wear different ones another time, and you're a stranger.
  - bitwize 2y ago
    I once interviewed for a job with a small group of people, all at once. To keep them all straight in my head before I learned their names I gave each a mental nickname based on their appearance: Red Hair, Taller Than My Dad, Jack Sparrow (he had hollow cheeks and a dark unkempt beard). Taller Than My Dad turned out to be comp.lang.c FAQ maintainer, Steve Summit.
    - TomK32 2y ago
      Did you rename you Dad to half-way-to-Summit?
    - shepherdjerred 2y ago
      This is straight out of The Office https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcksTKoZMts&t=178 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcksTKoZMts&t=178
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    Official family names like Miller etc are a quite modern phenomenon for the majority of people, an aspect of a more formal and powerful state apparatus. Traditional names are the first names, and these have been less direct for a very long time. First names are assigned in childhood and used for most of your life, so they are rarely related to your occupation. Much of Europe, America, and the Middle East of course use mostly the names of religious figures, but even in societies that didn't adopt foreign names, given names are typically words that evoke some positive aspiration, such as well liked/respected animals or plants. Of course, sometimes people would be known by other names as well.
    - shepherdjerred 2y ago
      Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism
- TomK32 2y ago
  Four-and-a-half years ago I started a new job and used Anki to learn all the names and faces of my ~100 coworkers, thankfully we had some internal directory that I did use as a data source. It worked great! Then the pandemic hit... I left the company three years ago and now could remember maybe five names if I met them.
- pnut 2y ago
  One of the guiding principles in my household is that people will generally forgive, but they will never forget the way you made them feel.
- at_a_remove 2y ago
  Not good with people, I had developed a facade full of weird coping mechanisms as I attempted to fake not being tremendously shy and avoidant of rejection. I was just into my twenties, working at a dating service as a kind of factotum (data entry, but also shooting and editing videos, networking, and reception). Inadvertently, the relevant details of all of our members just ... grafted themselves onto my hapless brain. Names, height, weight, job, member number, video number, and so forth. Employees began to call me rather than look people up in the directory, but I liked to greet people when they came in rather than having them fumble for their card. One conversation went like this: Me: Hello, $Firstname! No need for the card, I know your number is seventeen forty-two. It's been about six months since you've been in, let me get into the computer and get your activity printed. Him: You know me? Me: Just by your picture. [idle chatter mode initiated as I wait for the printer]. Say, you've lost about ten pounds. That's down to one-sixty, right? I'll make a note to update your profile. Him: [shifting uncomfortably] I was really one-eighty but I fudged it, so now it is accurate. Me: So, how's the insurance business? Him: You remember that? Me: [continuing on like a chipper but oblivious robot] Our members are important! Him: I'll buy you a steak dinner if you can tell me my birthday. Me: July thirty-first, nineteen forty-four. I let him off the steak dinner thing. I am not good with people and it took me a long time to learn that, although people like to be recognized and known to some degree, huge amounts of detail retained over long periods, or remembering even singular encounters with high fidelity freaks some folks out. Somewhere along the line, I had mechanically applied the "remember people's names" advice from books like How to Win Friends and Influence People and must have figured if some is good, more is better, then used the few strengths I had, but instead ended up setting off people's "information asymmetry" threat detection and/or Who Is This Freak. Now I clamp down and try not to blurt out recognizing someone from decades back, even though I am, like a puppy, happy to see a person from long ago once more. When I make jokes that I am like a golden retriever, I am kidding on the square.
nanna 2y ago
My parents dog tends to not eat his food unless they start pretending that his friend poppy, who died years ago and who used to love eating his food, is at the door. He panics and eats up his bowl, lifting his head up anxiously to look at the door every few mouthfuls.
- sova 2y ago
  Poppy's here!
  - nanna 2y ago
    Exactly this :)
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  That's kind of fucked up. They're reinforcing the fact that he should be worried about his food. They're training him to be anxious. If he doesn't want to eat, there's no reason to make him. He'll eat when he's hungry.
  - dboreham 2y ago
    Perhaps once it's in the model, it's so hard to re-train that the animal will starve itself in service of the training data?
    - morkalork 2y ago
      I'm pretty sure if you leave a dog alone with a bowl of food long enough, they'll eat it.
    - jjtheblunt 2y ago
      natural selection i think overrides that idea, but i also thought the same idea at first, and we have 5 rescues, so i should know better.
    - bongodongobob 2y ago
fuzzythinker 2y ago
It's not too surprising as they (in movies and also my dog) respond well after years to just the call of names of people they had a deeper relationship with. So if we associate the name of a toy, eg. "go get the penguin" and they played with it for long period of time, it makes sense that they form a relationship with the toy as well and had memories of it. Dogs dream (I imagine the noise and movements they make while sleeping are dreams), and I won't doubt they dream about owners playing with them and calling out the toy's name and thus reinforcing the name in their memories.
- washadjeffmad 2y ago
  I think the key difference isn't the memory, but the recall. Humans can recall memories at will, while dogs often require a prompt or stimulus, and there's not a clear indication that they're self-recalling information to think about things beyond a period of persistence. That's not diminutive of them, more a reflection that we've been selecting dogs for this behavior and other "breed traits" (which I think of as specific hereditary OCD) for thousands of years, so it makes sense they're primed for this from a context- or direction-giver. It's why if you teach a dog a trick that it's still able to recall years later, it won't go off and practice it on its own or teach it to other dogs.
  - Laaas 2y ago
    I don’t think I can recall memories at will. They pop up when I get cues.
petepete 2y ago
I've had my Labrador for 12 years, she was about 1 when we rescued her. In the first week I was walking her and passed a bus stop mainly used by school kids. There's a small wall behind it and she dashed around and emerged with half a sausage roll hanging out of her mouth. To this day, every time we pass that spot she enthusiastically pulls and goes round to inspect.
- fracus 2y ago
  That poor dog will be perpetually disappointed. You should hide some sausage there every once in a while before your walks.
  - mikestew 2y ago
    Reminds me of the search and rescue dogs used for finding people in collapsed buildings after, say, an earthquake. Apparently the dogs get depressed after finding nothing but dead people, so the humans seed the rubble once in a while with a live human for the dogs to find. https://allcreatureslargeandsmall.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/tribute-and-memorial-to-the-search-and-rescue-dogs-of-9-11-words-and-images/ https://allcreatureslargeandsmall.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/t... "As time passes without survivors found, search-and-rescue dogs — especially those trained to find living people — experience increased stress and depression. One way this is mitigated is for handlers and trainers to stage mock “finds” so that the dogs can feel successful."
    - TomK32 2y ago
      Just like me when I fix a bug within a minute by pure chance... I need those easy wins.
      - nomoreusernames 2y ago
        [dead]
      - ericmcer 2y ago
        Ha yeah seriously. That makes me think of a managerial strategy that involves feeding a low performing employee softball tasks and praising them for completing them. Once they are convinced they are highly competent slowly start ramping up the complexity.
raldi 2y ago
Is it possible the names of the toys were fitting, like Kiki and Bouba? It would be interesting to see result where the toys had the same names but the dogs had never learned them.
thro2309 2y ago
[flagged]
- anonym29 2y ago
  This is absolutely not true. Anyone telling you this should not be trusted to responsibly socialize, train, or raise dogs.
  - thro2309 2y ago
    No, they should not be trusted on public and around kids.
    - iancmceachern 2y ago
      This is absolutely not true You and the top level parent commenter are confusing dogs with wolves Saying a dog isn't good in human soceity is like Saying wheat or cattle aren't good for eating. They've been specifically bred to be so over thousands of years by us, specifically for these purposes. Dog is truly man's best friend If a dog doesn't trust a person I been believe the dog, if a person doesn't like dogs, I don't trust the person. I always trust the dog.
      - hombre_fatal 2y ago
        I can’t read the original comment that started this thread, but being bred to be consumed is not the standard of evidence needed to know whether that thing promotes positive or negative health outcomes.
        iancmceachern 2y ago
        We have this weird attitude in the last couple decades. There is this thought that the factory farms of the last few decades apply to and are the same thing as the gradual development of agriculture and animal husbandry that lead out species out of the animal world into the human one. Agriculture, animal raising, these are what separate us from our ancestors, these are what enable civilization Horses, cows, dogs, cats, other livestock. These animals have made us what we are, and us them. They and our modern civilization are inextricably tied.
aebtebeten 2y ago
Orwell wrote two books which purported to sketch different societies from his own mid-century english one: In 1984, the inner party sell the story of "english socialism", although closer inspection reveals a tripartite distinction in which they (nomenklatura) derive most of the benefit from a system administered by the outer party (apparatchiks, kept on a tight leash) and staffed by the proles (who have more freedom than outer party members, because, well, they're harmless). In Animal Farm, the pigs sell the story of "animalism", although closer inspection reveals a tripartite distinction in which they derive most of the benefit from a system administered by the dogs and staffed by the other animals. In 1984, the distinction between inner and outer party is in theory not a matter of family background, but depends merely upon performance on standardised exams during adolescence. If we can push the loose parallels between the two works, then we'd expect that according to Orwell's model of animals, while pigs are the brightest among the domesticated species, dogs are not far behind in intellect? Do we expect he'd have been surprised at TFA's reporting? Lagniappe: https://ribbonfarm.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/hughMcLeodCompanyHierarchy.jpg https://ribbonfarm.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/20... (I know dogs buy into The House Rules so much that they can be remarkably guilty-looking if you run across clear evidence of them having done something they were supposed not to do; the question Venkatesh Rao might ask is if any dogs ever attempt to shift the blame onto another critter?)
- smogcutter 2y ago
  In the case of animal farm, it’s not so much that the dogs are more intelligent than the other animals as that Napoleon takes advantage of their disposition to unshakeable loyalty and need for a master. Likewise, unfortunately, in life. If you have to rank the animals by intelligence, second (or first, even?) is certainly Benjamin the donkey.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    Looking through Rao's prism (in which disposition to unshakeable loyalty is a "clueless" trait), Benjamin is a clear "sociopath" candidate: he's (a) laconic, and (b) underperforming. [In the 80s, Rabinovich was allowed a tour of Europe. He sent telegrams from everywhere: "Greetings from free Bulgaria. Rabinovich" "Greetings from free Romania. Rabinovich" "Greetings from free Hungary. Rabinovich" "Greetings from Austria. Free Rabinovich"]
smittywerben 2y ago
I remember how happy our Golden Retriever was after digging up his Kong toy buried in the dirt in the backyard from eons ago. He liked hiding bones out there, and he had several Kong toys laying around the house and yard, but this dirty earthy Kong toy must have gone missing and when he dug it up it was like he struck oil.
quintes 2y ago
Our dog a shitzu cross can remember multiple toy names, and go find the specific one. Dogs are the best man
- nutrie 2y ago
  What always surprises me is they remember places they haven't been at for many years as well. Not so much people in my experience. I guess we don't matter to them as much as we like to think we do :)
  - quintes 2y ago
    Remembering places is an interesting one, I’ve not experienced that with our little guy except he knows the vet and the kennel and not a fan of either. I suspect you’re right and we are not as important as we think we are to them but a wagging tail tells me all I need to know!
jumploops 2y ago
It always bothers me how little intelligence we assume of and thus ascribe to the animal kingdom. Especially to our mammalian brethren, who have many of the same underlying neurological mechanisms (though in differing quantities). Dogs have co-evolved with humans for thousands of years. Remembering names seems like a useful albeit unsurprising skill, especially when it comes to recognizing/avoiding danger. “The bear/wolf/demon tribe is back!” Will we ever stop looking down from our heavenly pedestal? Can we instead treat at our earthly contemporaries as different but equal?
- accrual 2y ago
  I agree, I think there is a lot of intelligence around us, perhaps even in ways we don't fully see or imagine. One of the largest organisms on Earth is a mycelium network in Oregon, it's nearly 4 square miles in size. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-... Is it possible this mass of mycelium has some form of intelligence that is difficult for humans to measure? Maybe it "knows" things we can barely conceptualize. What about trees that stand in place for hundreds, or even thousands of years? https://www.treehugger.com/the-worlds-oldest-living-trees-4869356 https://www.treehugger.com/the-worlds-oldest-living-trees-48... Perhaps the trees experience time differently due to their slow growth, and they too have "witnessed" many different events in their environment over time, encapsulating them in the rings and structures within themselves. We could write this off as non-sense as trees have no nervous system, but maybe a lack of such a system doesn't necessarily preclude some type of intelligence we just don't consider "intelligent".
  - sethammons 2y ago
    I think you will enjoy the documentary The Hidden Life of Trees. It talks about trees and social networks of mycelium where trees share nutrients and information on threats (ant species X attacking, start chemical defenses) and mother trees prioritize their offspring over other neighbors when sharing nutrients. There are whole worlds to be discovered yet here on our little blue dot of a planet
  - 2y ago
lofaszvanitt 2y ago
Wow, now release the study on how to take over control of an animal remotely.
thelittleone 2y ago
Here I can barely remember the browser tab I was just working on.
kazinator 2y ago
I don't believe it. Dogs' brain matter is a different shade of gray, which only remembers for six weeks.
- denkmoon 2y ago
  That’s a clearly absurd proposition. My family’s dogs remember me when i haven’t been around for 6 months, let alone 6 weeks.
  - kazinator 2y ago
    The point is, why should it it be surprising.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    > That’s a clearly absurd proposition. Yes, that is the joke.
    - denkmoon 2y ago
      Terrible joke. "Lol"
banana_giraffe 2y ago
I used to watch a family member's dogs. One year one of the dogs got super obsessed with a toy I bought. As I was packing things up, the dog saw me put the toy in a drawer. A year later when dog was dropped off it immediately went to the room with the drawer and waited eagerly for me to open the drawer and retrieve the toy.
inopinatus 2y ago
corollary: a toy cannot be disposed of whilst at least one dog holds a reference to it in memory.
nyjah 2y ago
I have a German shepherd. She’s 10. I’ve been buying the same toy for her for the last 10 years, jolly ball soccer ball in blue. Probably average about 2 a year. My dog understands when it’s time for the new one. She’s ultra excited and all the sudden the old ball we have kicked and fetched every single day for 6 months, is non existent as we are on to the new one. I always get a kick out of it. She’s too funny about it.
imoverclocked 2y ago
I've had a Mal for a couple of years now; I find myself looking for new words to describe "go" and "walk" with my s/o. We can only use the new words for so long before he catches on and the old ones don't seem to fade away. It's almost a game between us now.
spike021 2y ago
My dog constantly surprises me and he's only 3.5 years old. The first year I had him as a puppy, he could smell/hear (?) his best neighborhood buddy walking multiple buildings away from our apartment while the windows were closed. He'd run to the door and start crying and as soon as we got outside he knew the right path. And his friend hadn't even walked by our building yet, so it's not like there was a trail to sniff other than whatever may have been carried by breeze. Dogs are incredibly smart.
- gitaarik 2y ago
  There's also this experiment with dogs where they observed dogs getting up, walking to the front door, and waiting for their owner to come back home from work, as soon as the owner started heading home from the office. They somehow know, like they're telephatically connected.
  - poikroequ 2y ago
    I know the experiment you're referring to. It's been a long time since I've seen it, no idea how to find it now, but you're definitely misremembering some details. Dogs do have a sense of time, but in that experiment, it actually had to do with scent. As their owner was away, their scent would gradually dissipate throughout the day. At a certain point, the scent was weak enough that the dog knew it was about time for their owner to be home. In the experiment, then they did everything they could to remove their owners scent from their home. The dog's owner came home at the usual time, but the dog wasn't expecting it this time because they had removed the owner's scent earlier, so the dog was clearly surprised and confused. Dogs have a very strong sense of smell which we humans often fail to appreciate. It's not like dogs can smell their owner coming home from miles away, that's a little preposterous. But they can use their sense of smell in other ways, which are not so obvious to us, such as to maintain a sense of time.
    - gitaarik 2y ago
      Aha, interesting, I looked up some info about it and it seems that in another experiment the dogs also reacted when the owner went home at irregular times. Quite interesting: https://www.sheldrake.org/research/animal-powers/a-dog-that-seems-to-know-when-his-owner-is-coming-home-videotaped-experiments-and-observations https://www.sheldrake.org/research/animal-powers/a-dog-that-...
jonplackett 2y ago
Why is this surprising? Dogs are frikkin clever. Our old Collie could fetch different types of ball on command without really any intention training.
- xandrius 2y ago
  Everything and nothing is surprising but still sometimes we need many unsurprising things to discover something surprising. And sometimes it's just a bunch of scientists having a great time playing with doggos :)
rongenre 2y ago
I had a GSD who remembered everyone who threw a tennis ball for her. To the point that I had to warn people that if they tossed it once, she'd be dropping a tennis ball in their laps for the foreseeable future. I miss that girl.
Biganon 2y ago
"...years after (last) seeing them", or "after years of not seeing them".
aj7 2y ago
Remember names? Dogs have egos!!
benjyk 2y ago
The first author of the study -- Dr Shany Dror -- presented an excellent seminar about this paper on Cassyni.* https://doi.org/10.52843/cassyni.hwbggb https://doi.org/10.52843/cassyni.hwbggb *I'm one of the founders of Cassyni
raffraffraff 2y ago
My dog remembered a song. I may have posted before. Zuni (a lurcher) and Pasha (a greyhound) were two dogs we rescued about 12 years ago. We took two because they were together and we didn't want to split them up. Zuni was a howler. He'd howl if he heard the ice-cream truck, and Pasha would join in. Now, in our house, music is playing pretty much constantly, and we always assumed that dogs either didn't understand it or didn't care about it. But whenever the Warren Zevon song "Werewolves of London" came on, my wife would try to get Zuni howling with the "Aaaaaaaah Ooooooh" bit. Every time the song would come on, she'd make the same silly joke with the dogs. Zuni would begin to howl immediately, and Pasha would join in with him. Well, Pasha was diagnosed with bone cancer and we lost her a few months after that. Sheena couldn't bare playing the song and I intentionally avoided it. We got another greyhound as a companion for Zuni. About a year after we got Lily, I put on a random mix and wandered around the house doing chores. Some time later I heard the first bars of Werewolves in London and immediately though "damn, I hope the wife doesn't hear this". Before I could finish the thought, Zuni was howling his head off, and racing around the house, I think, searching for Pasha. It hadn't even gotten too the "Aaaaaaaah Ooooooh" part. Which means that he also recognised the song in the first few bars.

319 points by pseudolus 2y ago

At work I often learned the full names and other details about dozens of coworkers, customers, whatever, even if I didn't need to know. A few years after leaving wherever, I begin to forget even the simplest names, and I consider this as a blessing, as if Agent K set the flashy-thing in my eyes and I've returned to an ordinary life.

dboreham 2y ago
For me typically some attribute remains in memory after the name fades: "white-teeth marketing dude" or "guy obsessed with keyboards". I suppose that's how names started: Miller, Shepard, etc. As a corollary to this if I'm going into a business situation where I think it would be useful to be remembered, I'll try to wear something notable -- brightly colored shoes, something like that. Imagining the other parties discussing "that bloke, what was his name?? who? Um, the one with the orange shoes. Oh yes".
- card_zero 2y ago
  Nathan Whitetoothdouche, Jeff Analkeyboards. But isn't the orange shoes thing a classic spy tactic to get people to ignore your face? Now all they remember about you is your shoes. Wear different ones another time, and you're a stranger.
- bitwize 2y ago
  I once interviewed for a job with a small group of people, all at once. To keep them all straight in my head before I learned their names I gave each a mental nickname based on their appearance: Red Hair, Taller Than My Dad, Jack Sparrow (he had hollow cheeks and a dark unkempt beard). Taller Than My Dad turned out to be comp.lang.c FAQ maintainer, Steve Summit.
  - TomK32 2y ago
    Did you rename you Dad to half-way-to-Summit?
  - shepherdjerred 2y ago
    This is straight out of The Office https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcksTKoZMts&t=178 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcksTKoZMts&t=178
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  Official family names like Miller etc are a quite modern phenomenon for the majority of people, an aspect of a more formal and powerful state apparatus. Traditional names are the first names, and these have been less direct for a very long time. First names are assigned in childhood and used for most of your life, so they are rarely related to your occupation. Much of Europe, America, and the Middle East of course use mostly the names of religious figures, but even in societies that didn't adopt foreign names, given names are typically words that evoke some positive aspiration, such as well liked/respected animals or plants. Of course, sometimes people would be known by other names as well.
  - shepherdjerred 2y ago
    Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism
TomK32 2y ago
Four-and-a-half years ago I started a new job and used Anki to learn all the names and faces of my ~100 coworkers, thankfully we had some internal directory that I did use as a data source. It worked great! Then the pandemic hit... I left the company three years ago and now could remember maybe five names if I met them.
pnut 2y ago
One of the guiding principles in my household is that people will generally forgive, but they will never forget the way you made them feel.
at_a_remove 2y ago
Not good with people, I had developed a facade full of weird coping mechanisms as I attempted to fake not being tremendously shy and avoidant of rejection. I was just into my twenties, working at a dating service as a kind of factotum (data entry, but also shooting and editing videos, networking, and reception). Inadvertently, the relevant details of all of our members just ... grafted themselves onto my hapless brain. Names, height, weight, job, member number, video number, and so forth. Employees began to call me rather than look people up in the directory, but I liked to greet people when they came in rather than having them fumble for their card. One conversation went like this: Me: Hello, $Firstname! No need for the card, I know your number is seventeen forty-two. It's been about six months since you've been in, let me get into the computer and get your activity printed. Him: You know me? Me: Just by your picture. [idle chatter mode initiated as I wait for the printer]. Say, you've lost about ten pounds. That's down to one-sixty, right? I'll make a note to update your profile. Him: [shifting uncomfortably] I was really one-eighty but I fudged it, so now it is accurate. Me: So, how's the insurance business? Him: You remember that? Me: [continuing on like a chipper but oblivious robot] Our members are important! Him: I'll buy you a steak dinner if you can tell me my birthday. Me: July thirty-first, nineteen forty-four. I let him off the steak dinner thing. I am not good with people and it took me a long time to learn that, although people like to be recognized and known to some degree, huge amounts of detail retained over long periods, or remembering even singular encounters with high fidelity freaks some folks out. Somewhere along the line, I had mechanically applied the "remember people's names" advice from books like How to Win Friends and Influence People and must have figured if some is good, more is better, then used the few strengths I had, but instead ended up setting off people's "information asymmetry" threat detection and/or Who Is This Freak. Now I clamp down and try not to blurt out recognizing someone from decades back, even though I am, like a puppy, happy to see a person from long ago once more. When I make jokes that I am like a golden retriever, I am kidding on the square.

nanna 2y ago

My parents dog tends to not eat his food unless they start pretending that his friend poppy, who died years ago and who used to love eating his food, is at the door. He panics and eats up his bowl, lifting his head up anxiously to look at the door every few mouthfuls.

sova 2y ago
Poppy's here!
- nanna 2y ago
  Exactly this :)
bongodongobob 2y ago
That's kind of fucked up. They're reinforcing the fact that he should be worried about his food. They're training him to be anxious. If he doesn't want to eat, there's no reason to make him. He'll eat when he's hungry.
- dboreham 2y ago
  Perhaps once it's in the model, it's so hard to re-train that the animal will starve itself in service of the training data?
  - morkalork 2y ago
    I'm pretty sure if you leave a dog alone with a bowl of food long enough, they'll eat it.
  - jjtheblunt 2y ago
    natural selection i think overrides that idea, but i also thought the same idea at first, and we have 5 rescues, so i should know better.
  - bongodongobob 2y ago

fuzzythinker 2y ago

It's not too surprising as they (in movies and also my dog) respond well after years to just the call of names of people they had a deeper relationship with. So if we associate the name of a toy, eg. "go get the penguin" and they played with it for long period of time, it makes sense that they form a relationship with the toy as well and had memories of it. Dogs dream (I imagine the noise and movements they make while sleeping are dreams), and I won't doubt they dream about owners playing with them and calling out the toy's name and thus reinforcing the name in their memories.

washadjeffmad 2y ago
I think the key difference isn't the memory, but the recall. Humans can recall memories at will, while dogs often require a prompt or stimulus, and there's not a clear indication that they're self-recalling information to think about things beyond a period of persistence. That's not diminutive of them, more a reflection that we've been selecting dogs for this behavior and other "breed traits" (which I think of as specific hereditary OCD) for thousands of years, so it makes sense they're primed for this from a context- or direction-giver. It's why if you teach a dog a trick that it's still able to recall years later, it won't go off and practice it on its own or teach it to other dogs.
- Laaas 2y ago
  I don’t think I can recall memories at will. They pop up when I get cues.

petepete 2y ago

I've had my Labrador for 12 years, she was about 1 when we rescued her. In the first week I was walking her and passed a bus stop mainly used by school kids. There's a small wall behind it and she dashed around and emerged with half a sausage roll hanging out of her mouth. To this day, every time we pass that spot she enthusiastically pulls and goes round to inspect.

fracus 2y ago
That poor dog will be perpetually disappointed. You should hide some sausage there every once in a while before your walks.
- mikestew 2y ago
  Reminds me of the search and rescue dogs used for finding people in collapsed buildings after, say, an earthquake. Apparently the dogs get depressed after finding nothing but dead people, so the humans seed the rubble once in a while with a live human for the dogs to find. https://allcreatureslargeandsmall.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/tribute-and-memorial-to-the-search-and-rescue-dogs-of-9-11-words-and-images/ https://allcreatureslargeandsmall.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/t... "As time passes without survivors found, search-and-rescue dogs — especially those trained to find living people — experience increased stress and depression. One way this is mitigated is for handlers and trainers to stage mock “finds” so that the dogs can feel successful."
  - TomK32 2y ago
    Just like me when I fix a bug within a minute by pure chance... I need those easy wins.
    - nomoreusernames 2y ago
      [dead]
    - ericmcer 2y ago
      Ha yeah seriously. That makes me think of a managerial strategy that involves feeding a low performing employee softball tasks and praising them for completing them. Once they are convinced they are highly competent slowly start ramping up the complexity.

raldi 2y ago

Is it possible the names of the toys were fitting, like Kiki and Bouba? It would be interesting to see result where the toys had the same names but the dogs had never learned them.

thro2309 2y ago

[flagged]

anonym29 2y ago
This is absolutely not true. Anyone telling you this should not be trusted to responsibly socialize, train, or raise dogs.
- thro2309 2y ago
  No, they should not be trusted on public and around kids.
  - iancmceachern 2y ago
    This is absolutely not true You and the top level parent commenter are confusing dogs with wolves Saying a dog isn't good in human soceity is like Saying wheat or cattle aren't good for eating. They've been specifically bred to be so over thousands of years by us, specifically for these purposes. Dog is truly man's best friend If a dog doesn't trust a person I been believe the dog, if a person doesn't like dogs, I don't trust the person. I always trust the dog.
    - hombre_fatal 2y ago
      I can’t read the original comment that started this thread, but being bred to be consumed is not the standard of evidence needed to know whether that thing promotes positive or negative health outcomes.
      - iancmceachern 2y ago
        We have this weird attitude in the last couple decades. There is this thought that the factory farms of the last few decades apply to and are the same thing as the gradual development of agriculture and animal husbandry that lead out species out of the animal world into the human one. Agriculture, animal raising, these are what separate us from our ancestors, these are what enable civilization Horses, cows, dogs, cats, other livestock. These animals have made us what we are, and us them. They and our modern civilization are inextricably tied.

aebtebeten 2y ago

Orwell wrote two books which purported to sketch different societies from his own mid-century english one: In 1984, the inner party sell the story of "english socialism", although closer inspection reveals a tripartite distinction in which they (nomenklatura) derive most of the benefit from a system administered by the outer party (apparatchiks, kept on a tight leash) and staffed by the proles (who have more freedom than outer party members, because, well, they're harmless). In Animal Farm, the pigs sell the story of "animalism", although closer inspection reveals a tripartite distinction in which they derive most of the benefit from a system administered by the dogs and staffed by the other animals. In 1984, the distinction between inner and outer party is in theory not a matter of family background, but depends merely upon performance on standardised exams during adolescence. If we can push the loose parallels between the two works, then we'd expect that according to Orwell's model of animals, while pigs are the brightest among the domesticated species, dogs are not far behind in intellect? Do we expect he'd have been surprised at TFA's reporting? Lagniappe: https://ribbonfarm.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/hughMcLeodCompanyHierarchy.jpg https://ribbonfarm.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/20... (I know dogs buy into The House Rules so much that they can be remarkably guilty-looking if you run across clear evidence of them having done something they were supposed not to do; the question Venkatesh Rao might ask is if any dogs ever attempt to shift the blame onto another critter?)

smogcutter 2y ago
In the case of animal farm, it’s not so much that the dogs are more intelligent than the other animals as that Napoleon takes advantage of their disposition to unshakeable loyalty and need for a master. Likewise, unfortunately, in life. If you have to rank the animals by intelligence, second (or first, even?) is certainly Benjamin the donkey.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  Looking through Rao's prism (in which disposition to unshakeable loyalty is a "clueless" trait), Benjamin is a clear "sociopath" candidate: he's (a) laconic, and (b) underperforming. [In the 80s, Rabinovich was allowed a tour of Europe. He sent telegrams from everywhere: "Greetings from free Bulgaria. Rabinovich" "Greetings from free Romania. Rabinovich" "Greetings from free Hungary. Rabinovich" "Greetings from Austria. Free Rabinovich"]

smittywerben 2y ago

I remember how happy our Golden Retriever was after digging up his Kong toy buried in the dirt in the backyard from eons ago. He liked hiding bones out there, and he had several Kong toys laying around the house and yard, but this dirty earthy Kong toy must have gone missing and when he dug it up it was like he struck oil.

quintes 2y ago

Our dog a shitzu cross can remember multiple toy names, and go find the specific one. Dogs are the best man

nutrie 2y ago
What always surprises me is they remember places they haven't been at for many years as well. Not so much people in my experience. I guess we don't matter to them as much as we like to think we do :)
- quintes 2y ago
  Remembering places is an interesting one, I’ve not experienced that with our little guy except he knows the vet and the kennel and not a fan of either. I suspect you’re right and we are not as important as we think we are to them but a wagging tail tells me all I need to know!

jumploops 2y ago

It always bothers me how little intelligence we assume of and thus ascribe to the animal kingdom. Especially to our mammalian brethren, who have many of the same underlying neurological mechanisms (though in differing quantities). Dogs have co-evolved with humans for thousands of years. Remembering names seems like a useful albeit unsurprising skill, especially when it comes to recognizing/avoiding danger. “The bear/wolf/demon tribe is back!” Will we ever stop looking down from our heavenly pedestal? Can we instead treat at our earthly contemporaries as different but equal?

accrual 2y ago
I agree, I think there is a lot of intelligence around us, perhaps even in ways we don't fully see or imagine. One of the largest organisms on Earth is a mycelium network in Oregon, it's nearly 4 square miles in size. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-... Is it possible this mass of mycelium has some form of intelligence that is difficult for humans to measure? Maybe it "knows" things we can barely conceptualize. What about trees that stand in place for hundreds, or even thousands of years? https://www.treehugger.com/the-worlds-oldest-living-trees-4869356 https://www.treehugger.com/the-worlds-oldest-living-trees-48... Perhaps the trees experience time differently due to their slow growth, and they too have "witnessed" many different events in their environment over time, encapsulating them in the rings and structures within themselves. We could write this off as non-sense as trees have no nervous system, but maybe a lack of such a system doesn't necessarily preclude some type of intelligence we just don't consider "intelligent".
- sethammons 2y ago
  I think you will enjoy the documentary The Hidden Life of Trees. It talks about trees and social networks of mycelium where trees share nutrients and information on threats (ant species X attacking, start chemical defenses) and mother trees prioritize their offspring over other neighbors when sharing nutrients. There are whole worlds to be discovered yet here on our little blue dot of a planet
- 2y ago

lofaszvanitt 2y ago

Wow, now release the study on how to take over control of an animal remotely.

thelittleone 2y ago

Here I can barely remember the browser tab I was just working on.

kazinator 2y ago

I don't believe it. Dogs' brain matter is a different shade of gray, which only remembers for six weeks.

denkmoon 2y ago
That’s a clearly absurd proposition. My family’s dogs remember me when i haven’t been around for 6 months, let alone 6 weeks.
- kazinator 2y ago
  The point is, why should it it be surprising.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  > That’s a clearly absurd proposition. Yes, that is the joke.
  - denkmoon 2y ago
    Terrible joke. "Lol"

banana_giraffe 2y ago

I used to watch a family member's dogs. One year one of the dogs got super obsessed with a toy I bought. As I was packing things up, the dog saw me put the toy in a drawer. A year later when dog was dropped off it immediately went to the room with the drawer and waited eagerly for me to open the drawer and retrieve the toy.

inopinatus 2y ago

corollary: a toy cannot be disposed of whilst at least one dog holds a reference to it in memory.

nyjah 2y ago

I have a German shepherd. She’s 10. I’ve been buying the same toy for her for the last 10 years, jolly ball soccer ball in blue. Probably average about 2 a year. My dog understands when it’s time for the new one. She’s ultra excited and all the sudden the old ball we have kicked and fetched every single day for 6 months, is non existent as we are on to the new one. I always get a kick out of it. She’s too funny about it.

imoverclocked 2y ago

I've had a Mal for a couple of years now; I find myself looking for new words to describe "go" and "walk" with my s/o. We can only use the new words for so long before he catches on and the old ones don't seem to fade away. It's almost a game between us now.

spike021 2y ago

My dog constantly surprises me and he's only 3.5 years old. The first year I had him as a puppy, he could smell/hear (?) his best neighborhood buddy walking multiple buildings away from our apartment while the windows were closed. He'd run to the door and start crying and as soon as we got outside he knew the right path. And his friend hadn't even walked by our building yet, so it's not like there was a trail to sniff other than whatever may have been carried by breeze. Dogs are incredibly smart.

gitaarik 2y ago
There's also this experiment with dogs where they observed dogs getting up, walking to the front door, and waiting for their owner to come back home from work, as soon as the owner started heading home from the office. They somehow know, like they're telephatically connected.
- poikroequ 2y ago
  I know the experiment you're referring to. It's been a long time since I've seen it, no idea how to find it now, but you're definitely misremembering some details. Dogs do have a sense of time, but in that experiment, it actually had to do with scent. As their owner was away, their scent would gradually dissipate throughout the day. At a certain point, the scent was weak enough that the dog knew it was about time for their owner to be home. In the experiment, then they did everything they could to remove their owners scent from their home. The dog's owner came home at the usual time, but the dog wasn't expecting it this time because they had removed the owner's scent earlier, so the dog was clearly surprised and confused. Dogs have a very strong sense of smell which we humans often fail to appreciate. It's not like dogs can smell their owner coming home from miles away, that's a little preposterous. But they can use their sense of smell in other ways, which are not so obvious to us, such as to maintain a sense of time.
  - gitaarik 2y ago
    Aha, interesting, I looked up some info about it and it seems that in another experiment the dogs also reacted when the owner went home at irregular times. Quite interesting: https://www.sheldrake.org/research/animal-powers/a-dog-that-seems-to-know-when-his-owner-is-coming-home-videotaped-experiments-and-observations https://www.sheldrake.org/research/animal-powers/a-dog-that-...

jonplackett 2y ago

Why is this surprising? Dogs are frikkin clever. Our old Collie could fetch different types of ball on command without really any intention training.

xandrius 2y ago
Everything and nothing is surprising but still sometimes we need many unsurprising things to discover something surprising. And sometimes it's just a bunch of scientists having a great time playing with doggos :)

rongenre 2y ago

I had a GSD who remembered everyone who threw a tennis ball for her. To the point that I had to warn people that if they tossed it once, she'd be dropping a tennis ball in their laps for the foreseeable future. I miss that girl.

Biganon 2y ago

"...years after (last) seeing them", or "after years of not seeing them".

aj7 2y ago

Remember names? Dogs have egos!!

benjyk 2y ago

The first author of the study -- Dr Shany Dror -- presented an excellent seminar about this paper on Cassyni.* https://doi.org/10.52843/cassyni.hwbggb https://doi.org/10.52843/cassyni.hwbggb *I'm one of the founders of Cassyni

raffraffraff 2y ago

My dog remembered a song. I may have posted before. Zuni (a lurcher) and Pasha (a greyhound) were two dogs we rescued about 12 years ago. We took two because they were together and we didn't want to split them up. Zuni was a howler. He'd howl if he heard the ice-cream truck, and Pasha would join in. Now, in our house, music is playing pretty much constantly, and we always assumed that dogs either didn't understand it or didn't care about it. But whenever the Warren Zevon song "Werewolves of London" came on, my wife would try to get Zuni howling with the "Aaaaaaaah Ooooooh" bit. Every time the song would come on, she'd make the same silly joke with the dogs. Zuni would begin to howl immediately, and Pasha would join in with him. Well, Pasha was diagnosed with bone cancer and we lost her a few months after that. Sheena couldn't bare playing the song and I intentionally avoided it. We got another greyhound as a companion for Zuni. About a year after we got Lily, I put on a random mix and wandered around the house doing chores. Some time later I heard the first bars of Werewolves in London and immediately though "damn, I hope the wife doesn't hear this". Before I could finish the thought, Zuni was howling his head off, and racing around the house, I think, searching for Pasha. It hadn't even gotten too the "Aaaaaaaah Ooooooh" part. Which means that he also recognised the song in the first few bars.