However, the GWL dogs were much more likely to pick up a toy—particularly the new ones—and bring it to their owner, clearly attempting to get said owner to play with them. The typical dogs were more likely to opt for passive physical contact with their owners. The authors interpreted this as a difference in social style rather than curiosity, possibly mirroring the way human babies try to communicate with parents by pointing or showing objects to them.

“The way these dogs actively recruit humans into interactions around novel objects is intriguing,” said co-author Andrea Sommese of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria. “It raises the possibility that social motivation plays a role in why some dogs end up learning object names. Our results suggest that to understand why some dogs learn words, we may need to look less at the toys and more at the relationship. This opens new directions for studying how language-related skills can emerge in species that live so closely with humans.”