Since time immemorial, dogs have been considered man’s best friend. They usually spend a lot of time with their owners and develop an emotional relationship, to the point that they can express affection and anger depending on the circumstances. That’s why a new study was commissioned to investigate how many words do dogs understand by their owners.

The analysis, published in “Applied Animal Behavior Science”, was attended by approx 165 dogs, of various ages, breeds and professions (whether they are domestic dogs or dogs trained for a certain profession). According to the study, professionally trained dogs have a higher vocabulary than that of the domestics.

How many words do dogs understand from humans?

According to research conducted by scientists at the Canadian University of British Columbia, dogs understand about 89 specific grammatical words or structures, which is very impressive. About half of those sentences are ordersmore related to sitting, waiting or looking for something.

Furthermore, the researchers concluded that dogs can expand their vocabulary to understand more of 200 wordssomething like the vocabulary a two-year-old would have. On the other hand, dogs’ understanding of these words is no less, as they respond with quite specific actions.

Age does not affect your understanding

Despite the fact that the study assures that the breed of the dog and its training directly influence in language comprehension ability, it has been found that its age and knowledge of its owner do not matter when it comes to expanding its inclusive vocabulary.

Other factors that could affect how much vocabulary dogs understand are how much time their owner spends teaching them new skills, their genetic characteristics of the animal and its profession.