Dr. Cliff Redford: Dogs Picking Up Words Like Children - January 22, 2026

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The Last Show with David Cooper 18 min 3 speakers 6 chapters transcribed

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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

David Cooper 0:05

We work hard to strike the right amount of intelligence and ignorance. The Last Show with David Cooper.

Unknown 0:14

We've all seen videos online of dogs that know hundreds of words, but how do they learn them? Do they learn those words like little kids? Well, I'm here with Dr. Cliff Redford. It is vet talk. It is pet talk. Cliff is a veterinarian, definitely. And we are going to chat this science story. Cliff, welcome to the show.

Dr. Cliff Redford 0:33

Kind of a science story. Thanks for having me as usual. How do kids learn words? Do they learn words the same as dogs?

How do dogs learn words like children?

Dr. Cliff Redford 0:39

Like if they get it wrong, you bite their ear and rub their nose in their poop?

Unknown 0:44

Like isn't that how you do it? I think if the authorities knew you were doing that, you wouldn't have your kids long enough to know.

Dr. Cliff Redford 0:51

Well, my kids don't make mistakes because they know what happens if they do. Oh, boy. All right.

Unknown 0:55

Great parent, veterinarian. He's even better with your pets, people.

Dr. Cliff Redford 0:58

I am. I'm just I'm just joshing you guys. Yeah, this was a this was a interesting article. I've always heard that dogs have the intelligence of two to like kids that are aged two to three. Depending on the dog and I guess technically depending on the kid. Depending on the kid, yeah. As well, right?

Unknown 1:18

I don't buy it, but I'll accept it as a thing people say to keep listening to you.

Dr. Cliff Redford 1:23

Well, I guess the thing is, is what is intelligence, right? Like, you know, a three-year-old child can probably read a little bit and they can have conversations to a certain point. You can't get that with your dog. No. But... that is as much an issue of the difference between dogs and people.

What similarities exist between child and dog language acquisition?

Dr. Cliff Redford 1:47

It's not, you know, I can't say rough, rough, rough properly.

Unknown 1:50

Like if you could have some AI program to read the dog's face and understand the bark, and then you could have an AI video of a dog responding to them in a bark, maybe you could do that. I don't know. Probably not.

Dr. Cliff Redford 2:00

Yeah. I'm not sure how it works. So that's the problem is we, we think of intelligence as like, you know, our intelligence, right? Like we build nuclear bombs, which probably shows that we're dumb. Well, I don't. But we're, as a society, we have planes and cars and we talk to each other on podcasts or is it a radio show? Both, baby. Both, baby. But there are other forms of intelligence. But this article became sort of, The big news. Way back in 2004, there was a reported case of a border collie named Rico. And Rico knew the names of more than 200 different toys. So big ball, little ball, teddy bear, whatever, kitty cat, whatever the toy is, he could pick out all these 200 toys. And so researchers started to look into, well, how is that possible?

Dr. Cliff Redford 3:02

Is it possible that he's picking up on some sort of signal from his owners or his handler that maybe even they don't know they're giving a signal to? And what they ended up doing was they found, first of all, that there are types of sort of highly intelligent dogs. Border Collies are one of them. But then they found a lot of other breeds, including Pugs, that were these dogs known as label learner dogs. And what they were able to show... is if the dog knows the word for ball teddy bear and bone and you have those three objects in a room but then you have a fourth object which could be uh uh whatever a mouse a little toy mouse and you say hey david david's the dog in this case hey david get me the mouse and

Dr. Cliff Redford 4:00

I can do that. Oh, no, you're talking about the dog. Got it. That's right. The dogs in these categories, these super intelligent dogs, were able to say, well, I know what those three things are. I don't know what mouse is. There's the only object I don't know. Let me get him that object.

Unknown 4:15

And the scientists studying it think, oh, the dog understands mouse.

Dr. Cliff Redford 4:19

Well, but that's how children learn, right? When I first started to learn the language of Greek, I did it via Rosetta Stone. And Rosetta Stone, it literally just says, here's a ball, you know, Ebola. It's just a picture of a ball and the word Ebola, which means the ball. Not Ebola, which is a separate thing that you don't want. That's right. And then it would show me four balls.