Turns out… probably YES!
Researchers took a group of dogs and trained them to sit in fMRI machines.

ENIKO KUBINYI A golden retriever hanging out on the scanner bed.
ENIKO KUBINYI
A golden retriever hanging out on the scanner bed.

The owners spoke words of praise in neutral and happy tones.
They also spoke gibberish in neutral and happy tones.
The praise words activated the speech center of the dogs’ brain, and the happy tone activated the reward center…  but the gibberish didn’t activate anything meaning the dogs didn’t understand the nonsense words!

ENIKO KUBINYI The very adorable test subjects.
ENIKO KUBINYI
The very adorable test subjects.
Filed under: Daily Dose of Cute, DDoC, dogs, science