New Study About Dogs and Human Conversation Is Mind-Blowing

We’ve all had that moment where we’re mid-conversation and suddenly our dog perks up at a single word, and it’s usually one of the buzz words like “walk,” “treat,” or “ball.” But according to new research, our pups may be paying attention way more than we realized.

A new study found that dogs can identify words that matter to them even when we don’t realize they can hear our conversation. This means they pick up on more than just our excited tone in conversations. Basically, if you thought you could spell “W-A-L-K” without needing to switch gears and go outside, think again.

Research from the University of Sussex and the University of Lincoln in the UK, published in Animal Cognitionin April 2025, found that dogs can identify words they care about, even when buried in regular conversation.

According to PetsRadar, 53 dogs of a variety of different breeds, participated in the study. Each of the dogs was played “streams of monotonous speech” that had phrases and words that were both relevant and irrelevant to what they would need to know.

The research team noticed that the dogs turned to look at their parents when they heard words in the streams of sounds that they were familiar with.

“Usually, when speaking to dogs, we use dog-directed speech at the same time as trying to read dog body language in return,” the publication explained. It’s a similar pattern of speech recognition for young children, infants, and toddlers, too, where we talk in a slightly higher pitch, especially when we’re using it to express excitement.

The research team at the University of Lincoln and the University of Sussex found that dogs understood the words even without those changes in pitch or other context clues.

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“Our research shows that dogs are able to pick out and recognize words relevant to them in a monotonous stream of otherwise irrelevant speech, even in the absence of the intonation cues we usually use to engage them,” lead author Professor David Reby, of the University of Sussex, said.

“While this could be as a result of domestication by humans, further research should be conducted on wolves and other wild species to test if they have similar abilities.”

This study is interesting news to dog parents who either want to help their pups learn as much as possible or develop an understanding of how to better speak or train with their dogs. Other pup parents will find this helpful if they’re trying to discuss potential plans without getting their dog’s hopes up before it’s time.

The research team hopes this will help to narrow down the age at which puppies first begin to learn and respond to human speech, furthering their understanding of language evolution and acquisition as a whole.

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