It is widely accepted that dogs are among the smartest beings in the animal world. Most dogs can learn to identify human language, follow human commands, and even identify certain human emotions.

However, not every dog in the world can remember the names of a hundred different toys.

Not every dog but these six “genius dogs”, identified by Hungarian researchers, after nearly two years of intense search around the globe.

In a paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the researchers from the University of Budapest have identified six dogs – border collies – with an exceptional ability to grasp and remember portions of human language.

The dogs’ Max from Hungary, Gaia from Brazil, Nalani from the Netherlands, Sqall from the United States, Whisky from Norway, and Rico from Spain were identified after they successfully recognised the names of more than 28 different toys, while some of them could remember up to a 100 different toy names during the Genius Dog Challenge.

Max, the “Genius” border collie. Credit: Instagram

“These gifted dogs can learn new names of toys at a remarkable speed,” Dr. Claudia Fugazza, lead author of the paper and a professor at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest told the Guardian. “In our previous study, we found that they could learn a new toy name after hearing it only four times. But, with such short exposure, they did not form a long-term memory of it.”

The owners of the dogs were asked to teach the dogs new toys names each week, in order to better understand the dogs’ cognitive abilities. The owners attempted to teach six new toys names per week at first and then progressed to 12 new toys names per week later on.

Among all the dogs that participated in the challenge, the six dogs were able to remember all the toy names they were taught even after a period of two months.

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