Rajapalayams are thought of as unintelligent. But my Bommi keeps beating the stereotype. She is so loving and communicative and loves her family.

She can recognize 5 different names. Appu (my grandpa), Sriram (my nephew) , Ramiyan (Man from our village), Panneer (man from our village) and myself.

Actually I have tested her with 3 people in the room and can send her to whom ever I name.

Anyway, none of my other dogs can do this. Only bommi know the names of her family members. I HAVE NEVER CONSCIOUSLY TRAINED HER TO DO THIS.

Bommi knows names

She's smart! My dog is conceited.

I think she's smart too.


PS

One of my dogs knows three people's names .... and all three happen to be connected in some way with food.

Not that I think that has anything to do with it. hahahahaha

Amber knows my sister as auntie and looks for her when I mention her name, she also knows the name of the kennel she goes to and recognizes the driveway if we drive past. I don't know if she'd recognize me by name though.

My previous dog knew my son by name, but I never taught her anyone else's name.

My late Missy dog knew most of my immediate family by name (6-7 people) as well as my 2 nanny kids. She also knew 3 cats by name as well as a couple of the sheep and of course my other dogs.

Never trained her, she just picked them up in everyday life. I think dogs that are very human focused and intuitive are the type that do this.

My current two are smart, but not really intuitive. They know each others names and Kipp knows a couple of the cats by name.

I don't think it has to do with orientation to humans. Dogs in large packs learn the names of all the dogs in the pack.
Names are just another sound that the dog learns to relate to an object or behavior, and dogs can distinguish between individuals of any type.
I agree that they pick it up on their own, without having to be taught, as long as there's enough repetition. My dog only learned my son and I because we were the only critters that she had frequent interaction with. If I had thought about it, I think I could have made a point of teaching her other peoples' names.

glad to know that bommi is not abnormal . she just seems so tuned into her humans, more than her dogs

My 15 yr old IG knows Chris, my son, by name, but that's all.
The Pinker knows ducks, cows, sheep, Jeff (my husband) turkeys-chickens. He knows several cows as individuals.

 Quote: Duane Hull

I don't think it has to do with orientation to humans. Dogs in large packs learn the names of all the dogs in the pack.
Names are just another sound that the dog learns to relate to an object or behavior, and dogs can distinguish between individuals of any type.
I agree that they pick it up on their own, without having to be taught, as long as there's enough repetition. My dog only learned my son and I because we were the only critters that she had frequent interaction with. If I had thought about it, I think I could have made a point of teaching her other peoples' names.

I think you might change you mind if you experienced a super intuitive human focused dog. You don't train them as much as they learn in an uncanny manner

They want so much to figured out what you want that they just learn words much like a toddler. Missy learned most of those names in a household that always had 6-10 people coming and going. No effort on our part, no rewards given out. She figured it out.

And when I did make an effort to train her to do something, I'd show her what I wanted, name it and she'd have it in a snap. In 10 minutes of "training" she was rock solid on "roll over" with both voice commands and hand signals. She do it anywhere after that - with either a voice command or a hand signal.

It wasn't due to my superior ability to train, or due to a high amount of repetition. It was due to my dog's superior ability to pick words and LEARN and her strong desire to do so. Learning for the sake of learning was highly rewarding to her. And I think that inward drive to learn to be able to interact with their people is what sets some dogs apart.

I have 2 more normal dogs now. Both are Border Collies like Missy was, both are smart, like to learn and learn pretty quick. But they still learn like dogs, not like Missy . I have no doubt that they could learn many of the things that Missy did, but it would take a decent amount of time and effort on my part and a quite a bit of repetition for them.