“Sit” and “down” are commands that dogs have been taught for generations. Now scientists have found out
A new study from the University at Buffalo found thatthat dogs don't even need to be taught a specific action in order for them to repeat it on cue. That is, instead of "sit", you can simply say, for example, "repeat" or "again", and the dog will repeat any required action.
During the experiment, three dogs were first trainedrepeat a certain action, in particular, “spin” on command. Then the dogs learned the cue "again" and the corresponding gesture - he instructed them to reproduce the known action. In the end, the researchers had to evaluate whether the dogs actually learned the general concept of repeating recent actions, or whether they simply learned the word "again" as a new command for known actions. It turned out that they could quite understand the concept of repetition.