It's official: Dogs can understand human speech

Animal lovers are often being accused of attributing human characteristics to their pets. Up until recently it used to be considered that dogs and cats are incapable of understanding our words. Finally, for the first time, it has been proven that dogs can in fact understand human speech.

The experiment conducted by German researchers yielded fascinating results. They were able to determine that vocabulary of a collie by the name of Riko consisted of nearly 200 words and was steadily enriching.

The experiment was conducted in the following way. Riko was placed in a room with several objects that wree known to the dog, and some unknown. Collie’s owner asked the dog to bring that unknown object to him to another room. The dog, (perhaps, after drwing certain parallel between the command and the new object) picked it up and successfully (7 out of 10) completed the task.

It is also noteworthy to mention that such logical operation was quite complicated in itself. So the dog’s quick-wittedness should be acknowledged.

The experiment was repeated after a month. By that time, Riko was already aware of that same object and had no problems with bringing it to the owner when prompted. Consequently, the new word has remained in the dog's memory.

Such dog-human connection has been working for quite some time now. Japanese engineers full of inexhaustible imagination developed dog's collar that is capable of translating dog's barking, growling and yelps into human language.

Other news from the world of the man's best friends: One can hardly be surprised by the amount of doggy stuff on the market these days. Residents of Belgrade started purchasing special sunglasses for their lovely pets. The new accessory costs just as much as the ones for people (about $20-$30 USD).