While many dogs owners think their pets really do understand them, a new study has found they really do have a'rudimentary' understands of words. It could help explain the'squirrel phenomenon' where dogs instantly perk up, become agigated and even start hunting for squirrels when their owner tells them one is close by. However, researchers have been unclear what is actually happening in the canine brain - and how much they really understand. Eddie, a golden retriever-Labrador mix, was part of the study, along with his toys Piggy and Monkey. For the study, 12 dogs of varying breeds were trained for months by their owners to retrieve two different objects, based on the objects' names.

A groundbreaking study to investigate how dog brains process speech has revealed canines care about both what we say and how we say it. It discovered that dogs, like people, use the left hemisphere to process words, and the right hemisphere brain region to process intonation. It found praise activates dog's reward centre only when both words and intonation match, according to the new study in Science. Trained dogs around the fMRI scanner used in the study: Dogs, like people, use the left hemisphere to process words, and the right hemisphere brain region to process intonation, according to the new study in Science. The brain activation images showed that dogs prefer to use their left hemisphere to process meaningful but not meaningless words.