Dog

Man’s best friend’s surprisingly large vocabulary

In a previous enFact, we highlighted how 50% of what we say to each other in English is limited to only 135 words. That’s a small number of words to capture a universe of things to talk about. Which got us thinking about what happens when humans attempt to communicate with other species.

Over the years, we’ve grown accustomed to communicating with a few other species, including one in particular: man’s best friend. The average dog can understand about 165 words. The known maximum is 1,022 words recognized by Chaser, a Border Collie. About 42% of U.S. homes have a dog, most of whom choose the worst possible moment to forget the words they know.

Watch the video version of this enFact here.