What Are the Most Common Words People Say to Their Dogs?
Around the world, there are many commonalities in how people speak to their dogs.
<p>Photo: Nefci // Flickr</p>
It may be surprising, but there's relatively little scientific research about how humans and dogs interact. That was part of the motivation for researchers Alexandra Horowitz and Julie Hecht, both of whom work at Barnard College's Dog Cognition Lab.
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Recently, they published a new study in the journal Animal Cognition that looked at how people around the world interact with their canine companions. The researchers poured over 187 videos of people playing with dogs. The videos came from 19 different countries and featured people ranging in age from 8 to 75-years-old. Among their findings, as posted by New York Magazine, were the 35 most common words people use to speak to their dogs: