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In the video PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, at approximately 06:12, the woman says that there is/was a dog that was trained to have memorized 1400 names of toys. Its master would call out the name of the toy, and the dog would bring the toy from the adjacent room. Is this true/possible?

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There's an example of something similar to this in a NOVA about dogs. pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/how-smart-dogs.html – Cow King Mar 7 '12 at 1:53
Google for dog vocabulary finds many results, e.g. this one: nytimes.com/2011/01/18/science/18dog.html?pagewanted=all I'm not sure how much more confirmation or information on the subject you want. – ChrisW Mar 7 '12 at 2:55
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Anecdotally we had a border collie that knew the names of about 20 different toys including a Blue Rubber Elephant called "Republican." She knew the names of rooms so I could tell her to go laydown/play in the living room, bedroom, basement, etc and she would. She had an uncanny memory for where she last had her toys too. – Chad Mar 7 '12 at 14:53
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When books mention a max vocab for animals usually they mention something like 250. So animals can learn vocabulary, and I suppose if they can do it 250 times, then 1400 seems plausible, too. What they don't seem to be able to do is use human like grammar, i.e. combining 2 words to mean something new. – MatthewMartin Mar 7 '12 at 22:10
@MatthewMartin IIRC dolphins were shown to be able to comprehend simple grammar such as "bring [the] hoop [to the] frisbee" vs "bring [the] frisbee [to the] hoop" And Koko the gorilla supposedly invented neologisms -- "finger-bracelet" for a ring, etc. I don't think any animal has yet been shown to handle recursion, but I wouldn't bet against it... – Larry OBrien Mar 8 '12 at 16:41
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