The study is the first of its kind to determine that canines can differentiate between their owner’s voice, and the sounds of other people. Previous research had already shown dogs are capable of recognising their owners, but could not demonstrate exactly how they did so.
It was unclear whether they used vision or smell to tell their owners apart from everyone else, rather than judging based on their voice.
But researchers from Hungary’s Eotvos Lorand University have concluded the latter is, in fact, the case for man’s best friend.
Andics Attila, a researcher for the study, commented: “This is the first demonstration that dogs can tell apart their owner’s voice from many others.”
Researchers welcomed 28 canines and their owners into their laboratory, inviting the participants to play a game of hide and seek.
In a choice of two hiding places, one concealed the dog’s owner, and in the other was a stranger.
Both the owner and the stranger would then use a neutral tone to read aloud recipes.
The dog would then choose which one to head for from a distance.
The process would then be repeated numerous times.
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Lead researcher Anna Gabor said: “People mostly make use of three properties: pitch (higher or lower), noisiness (cleaner or harsher), and timbre (brighter or darker) to differentiate others.
“Dogs may make use of the same voice properties or different ones.
“If two voices differ in a property that matters for dogs, decisions should be easier.”