{"id":2818,"date":"2025-05-07T07:23:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T07:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/?p=2818"},"modified":"2025-05-07T07:23:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T07:23:54","slug":"new-study-finds-dogs-can-talk-to-humans-and-understand-complex-concepts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/?p=2818","title":{"rendered":"New Study Finds Dogs Can &#8220;Talk&#8221; to Humans and Understand Complex Concepts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">CINCINNATI (WKRC) \u2014 A groundbreaking global study conducted by the Department of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego, has found compelling evidence that dogs are capable of understanding and combining concepts &#8211; and even communicating with their owners using specially designed tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/4-29.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2822\" srcset=\"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/4-29.png 640w, https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/4-29-240x300.png 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The research centered around a unique communication method: a soundboard equipped with buttons, each programmed to say a specific word when pressed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2-34.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2823\" srcset=\"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2-34.png 640w, https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2-34-240x300.png 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Researchers observed dogs using these buttons across 47 different countries to determine whether the animals truly understood the words or were simply reacting to the outcomes of pressing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/1-35.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2824\" srcset=\"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/1-35.png 640w, https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/1-35-240x300.png 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One standout participant in the study is Stella, a Blue Heeler\u2013Catahoula mix who has become a viral sensation on TikTok for her button-pressing communication. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/7-13.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2827\" srcset=\"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/7-13.png 640w, https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/7-13-240x300.png 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In one notable instance, Stella\u2019s usual &#8220;beach&#8221; button was missing. Instead of giving up, she pressed the buttons for &#8220;help,&#8221; &#8220;water,&#8221; and &#8220;outside&#8221; in succession\u2014suggesting that she could combine separate concepts to form a new, meaningful request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/6-27.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2826\" srcset=\"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/6-27.png 640w, https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/6-27-240x300.png 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The findings open up exciting new possibilities for human-animal communication and suggest that dogs may have far greater cognitive abilities than previously understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video height=\"1280\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 720 \/ 1280;\" width=\"720\" controls src=\"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/video-1-3.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CINCINNATI (WKRC) \u2014 A groundbreaking global study conducted by the Department of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego, has found compelling evidence that dogs are capable of understanding and combining concepts &#8211; and even communicating with their owners using specially designed tools. The research centered around a unique communication method: a soundboard [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[608,607,609,87,610,606],"class_list":["post-2818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animal","tag-animalintelligence","tag-cognitivescience","tag-dogbuttons","tag-dogs","tag-smartpets","tag-talkingdogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2830,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818\/revisions\/2830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}