We had a thread here a few years back about a Border Collie whose owner claimed that he knew the meanings of around 200 words. In fact, researchers (I think in Germany) did test this dog in a pretty good no-cue series of tests. That is, the items he was to fetch were in a separate room, so no one could indicate either consciously or un- which item was being requested.

Included in the 200 words were about 30 commands, as I recall, so most of the words the dog recognized were item names. (The owner claimed he knew several person names, too, but that wasn't tested since the people he knew weren't present. The results of this dogs tests, though, would lead me to believe that he probably did know people names. )

Now this dog was a BC, and every IQ list (of dog breeds) I have seen, no matter what criteria were used to evaluate intelligence, has had BCs, GSDs, and Standard Poodles at the top. Still, I've read elsewhere that just about any basic-ob trained dog has about a 50-word vocabulary.

So I was thinking of how many words my own dogs recognize without voice cues or visual cues.

How many do you guys think?

I don't think a large vocabulary is particularly beneficial to training (haven't given it a ton of thought), but it's interesting anyway that dogs might have the ability to learn new words that matches or exceeds that of the average three-year-old human. (Some say five-year-old human!)

Mine certainly know a fair number.
The biggest number of items I've personally seen a dog recognize was my grandfather's service dog Odie. He could fetch well over 100 distinct items from throughout the house, dial the phone via speed dial and number pushing, pick up dropped items and return them to the correct person, and sort items like change, buttons, and bullet casings (long story). The only thing my grandfather couldn't quite get him to understand was picking out the correct dollar bill.

I'd guess my oldest BC knows at least 100. I know for sure she knows 10 different family members, a few different friends and 6 - 8 different pets by name. You tell her which cat and she'd look until she found that cat.

But she is also crazy intutive so she may be reading signals somehow, too. Several months ago she was getting antsy for supper and I told her to go bring her dish (she understood "bring" but I'd never put those together before adn I didn't poin tto her dish or even look at it) she looked around a minute then trotted over to her dish and brought it to me.

 Quote: Melissa Thom

... The biggest number of items I've personally seen a dog recognize was my grandfather's service dog Odie.

What breed was he? (Just curious.)

One of my dogs, I figure he knows just about 15 words (I mean in addition to commands), and all of them are names of foods. But then, he's a Pug.

Odie was a mix of a buff cocker spaniel my family had when I was a kid and a neighbor's white mini bull terrier that chewed his own doggie door in our fence and the end result looked like a buff standard size shorthaired dachshund with a little too much leg.

It was really cool how fast he could pick up new words once he started patterns.

 Quote: Melissa Thom

a neighbor's white mini bull terrier that chewed his own doggie door in our fence and the end result looked like a buff standard size shorthaired dachshund with a little too much leg.

Now THAT is funny. I have GOT to start keeping a record of all the weird things said on this forum!!

 Quote:

One of my dogs, I figure he knows just about 15 words (I mean in addition to commands), and all of them are names of foods. But then, he's a Pug.

Whatever motivates them When I first got Kipp he figured out that "Pepper" meant "cat" in just about 2 passing repeats. He was cat obsessed at the time and for months after just mention the word in passing and he'd loose all focus on me and be looking for that cat...

I've heard folks say how many hundred/thousand times a dog neads to hear a command / word to fully understand it... It took Falcon (and I assume all dogs) maybe three or four times to fully grasp what "do you want a treat?!!" means. Never fails to cause him to come running to the area which contains treats...

If we say anything about "Roxy" one of our cats - he is all on attention. We can talk about "Jake" the other cat and he couldn't care less, but if we say "Roxy", he immediately begins looking around to see where she might be lurking... Roxy is the first cat we attempted to introduce to Falcon and her purring/growling/etc... always causes a reacion.

It is interesting to see what "normal conversation" they pick up on and know what it means.

I know it has been learned/trained unknowingly, as has "are you hungry?", "daddy's home!", "lets go outside", etc...

Interesting topic and stories. Unless training, I am a huge slang and nickname user and they appear to know the meanings. I will resort to spelling out words from time to time. I wish I had the patience to count it out.

It amazes me how observant or associative they are for as much sleeping as they appear to do. I do enjoy watching the reactions offered. Holding the ear wash, I see a bunch of flat bodies with no heads.

I've never really thought about this as intellegence. I guess I assumed the few that are less obvious of knowing what is going on were of the lazy, relaxed personality. There are only a few dogs I've met that prompted me to think, simple processes going on in there. I would love to put each through the same 'testing' and see the results.

This is an interesting topic. I think it would be hard to count, because my dog (and MANY dogs, I suspect) seems to understand FAR more words than just the ones he's actively been taught. The poor guy knows some command in three different languages . My intention was to teach him in German, but sometime English or French comes out instead, and he still complies.

He knows the words pigeon and squirrel, and when I say "is that a...." whatever, he starts looking around to see what I'm referring to. He unerringly will look at whatever it is, be it a car, a bike, a dog, a jogger, etc. Doesn't matter.

I remember one day I said something to Murphy like "go over to that bench and bring me that sweatshirt please" and he actually did. The only known 'commands' in that phrase were 'go' and 'bring', and I only loosely gestured towards the bench when I asked him to go over.

Sometimes I wonder if he can read my mind