How the hell else are they going to learn words??

My dog is the opposite. I love him to death but he is not very intelligent.

I have conversations with my dog every day, and we understand each other, to a degree.

During the COVID lockdowns, my dog was able to pick up the words I use when I end a zoom meeting. He still knows them today and will run into my room with a toy

Sometimes I wonder if one of my two dogs might be such a gifted word learner. I constantly have to invent new words for „food“ and „walk“ to talk to housemates without the dog understanding (because he gets very excited whenever one of the two is mentioned, which is funny but also annoying because he howls when he is excited, and it takes him a few minutes to calm down again). Any new synonym only works exactly once.

The other of my dogs? That one needed months to learn „sit“ and „treat“… 😅

It's almost like animal IQ lies on a bellcurve as well