Your dog really does understand you

Do you ever feel like your dog just gets you? Well it turns out he really does!

Scientists in Hungary have published a pretty amazing study that found dogs understand both the meaning of words and the intonation used to speak them.

So it looks like even if you use a very excited tone to tell Sparky he’s going to the vet… he’ll probably see right through you.

It’s already been established that dogs are able to match hundreds of objects to words and learn elements of grammar and can be directed by human speech. But these new findings mean dogs are more like humans than was previously known.

They can process language using the same regions of the brain as people, according to the research published in Science.

Researchers at the University of Budapest recruited 13 family dogs, mostly Golden Retrievers and Border Collies, and trained them to sit totally still for seven minutes in an MRI scanner that measured their brain activity. 

A trainer spoke words of praise as well as neutral words such as “yet” and “if” which the researchers assumed would be meaningless to the dogs. However, each dog heard each word in both a neutral tone and a happy “atta boy” tone.

Well it looks like man’s best friend really does get us. But what about cats? Well….. You try getting one into an MRI machine… Ouch.