{"id":8294,"date":"2026-05-10T18:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T18:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=8294"},"modified":"2026-05-10T18:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T18:46:14","slug":"new-study-reveals-dogs-are-smarter-than-originally-thought-anticipating-unsaid-commands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=8294","title":{"rendered":"New study reveals dogs are smarter than originally thought, anticipating unsaid commands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cThey are really tuned in to our communication and are prepared to look to us for information.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most dog owners think their dog is the best,<\/a> smartest dog to ever walk the planet. Of course, they\u2019re all correct because it\u2019s obviously a tie between every dog that has ever existed. But a new study from Duke\u2019s Canine Cognition Lab<\/a> confirms that dogs are actually a lot smarter than humans initially gave them credit for<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study spanned five years as PhD student, Hannah Salomons and the rest of the Duke team partnered with a national service dog organization, Canine Companions. They were joined by other organizations to assess the cognitive abilities of puppies from eight weeks to 20 weeks of age. The puppies were tested every two weeks until they hit the age threshold of 20 weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All 100 puppies involved in the study were golden retrievers and golden retriever mixes. The team of scientists set out to discover how dog intelligence was developed<\/a>. They wanted to know whether abilities were developed in different chunks or if they developed together as general intelligence. The results were fascinating to the team. Salomons tells Duke Today<\/em><\/a>, \u201cThere hasn\u2019t really been a study of this size at this fine scale of detail done on puppy cognitive development before. It was a big undertaking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"dogs;<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What they found is that dogs have an ability to \u201cread minds\u201d\u2014or anticipate what a command will be. This cooperative communication skill develops remarkably early, much earlier than anticipated by those completing the study. Duke Today<\/em> writes, \u201cSkills such as understanding simple human gestures emerged early, alongside basic skills like working memory.\u201d Turns out that this communication skill is unique to dog puppies. Salomons explains to the school\u2019s digital outlet that wolf puppies do not display this level of understanding of cooperative communication with humans at such a young age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMolly is exceptionally intelligent. She picks up on everything, and she doesn\u2019t forget,\u201d Jamie Tan tells WBZ News Boston, an affiliate of CBS<\/a>, about her one-year-old rescue dog. \u201cShe\u2019s very emotionally intelligent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the news segment, they show how the puppies participated in the study, explaining that the dogs had to find treats with only non-verbal cues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One puppy fell asleep on the job, still inside the clear tube with a treat right in front of his nose. Being a puppy is hard work, especially when they are essentially expected to read minds to find a piece of kibble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salomons explains to WBZ News Boston, \u201cThey are really tuned in to our communication, and they are prepared to look to us for information. We tested how they look to humans and make eye contact to maybe make a connection or ask for help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"dogs;<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to the scientists who conducted the study, there\u2019s no need to do anything extra to apply this new information. The puppies in the study that were exposed to hundreds of students and staff on any given day at Duke University displayed the same level of socialization skills as a puppy raised within a family unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re enough for your dog, and giving them a nice, loving home is going to help them develop really well, and [that] your dog is looking to you for information,\u201d Salomons shares with the news outlet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThey are really tuned in to our communication and are prepared to look to us for information.\u201d Most dog owners think their dog is the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/696216978_1451690630325257_7621002758872265846_n.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8297,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8294\/revisions\/8297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}