By Claudia Bensimoun
First published: World Cynosport Rally
Originally published in 2013. Updated for 2025.
Do dogs remember your actions for later? This RallyDogs feature by Claudia Bensimoun on barkuptoday.com uncovers fascinating research by Dr. Adam Miklosi and Claudia Fugazza from Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary, showing dogs can imitate novel human actions and store them in memory—deferred imitation at its finest.
Building on 2006 work with Belgian Tervuren Philip, the study tested eight adult female dogs of various breeds, who recalled actions after 1-minute+ delays using “Do as I do” commands, achieving 70%+ accuracy. For rally trainers, this highlights dogs’ cognitive flexibility. Below are key findings from the study, including training implications. Read the full feature on RallyDogs.com here.
A recent scientific study shows that dogs can learn to copy human behavior and later repeat it. By Claudia Bensimoun
The next time your canine companion starts watching you intently, keep in mind that he’s capable of copying your behavior. The latest research in 2013 by Dr. Adam Miklosi and Claudia Fugazza, both ethologists from the University of Eotvos Lorand in Hungary, demonstrates that dogs do indeed copy humans.
This was first discovered in 2006 at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. Philip, a 4-year-old Belgian Tervuren working with Jozsef Topal, a behavioral ethologist, matched Topal’s actions. Topal would command “Do it,” and Philip, a trained service dog, would imitate the researcher’s actions. This included jumping in place, barking, then placing an object in a box, or carrying it to Philip’s owner.
Topal created these experiments to explore a dog’s imitative abilities. They were not intended to measure how long Philip’s memory lasted. “Nobody really cared, or saw that it could be useful for investigating how dogs learn or see their world,” says Miklosi, who was also involved in this research.
In 2009, another team of researchers found that dogs could correctly imitate an action only when there was a 5-second delay between watching it and imitating it. However, Miklosi did not accept these results and realized that the experiment needed to be adjusted.
To do this, he taught the dogs two basic commands: “Do as I do,” which required them to pay attention to what he was showing them, and “Do It.” In the second command, the dogs needed to imitate what he was showing them. However, what was missing was the command to wait before performing the imitation.
Claudia Fugazza, an Italian dog trainer and graduate student at Eotvos University, agreed to work on the missing command. In this new study, Miklosi and Fugazza sought to determine whether dogs possess the cognitive ability of deferred imitation. Miklosi and Fugazza believe that deferred imitation provides the first evidence of a dog’s ability to encode and recall actions.
Deferred imitation requires that the dog recall an action after a one-minute delay or more. This can only take place if the dog has retained the mental representation of that specific action. In this study, Fugazza and Miklosi conducted experiments with eight adult pet dogs aged 2-10 years and their handlers.
The dogs were of many different breeds and were all females. The breeds included Border Collies, a Yorkshire Terrier, a Shetland Sheepdog, a mixed breed, and a Czechoslovakian Wolf Dog. These dogs were all trained with the “Do as I do” method. They had to wait for 5-30 seconds before being allowed to imitate the observed human action. The researchers then observed whether the dogs could copy these actions after delays of 40 seconds to 10 minutes. During the delay, the dogs were engaged in other activities.
Miklosi and his team were looking for confirmation of the dog’s ability to encode and recall the specific action after an interval. “We just kept slowly increasing the time between the demonstration and the ‘Do it’ command,” Fugazza notes. If the dogs could imitate the specific behavior twice after waiting for 30 seconds, they were then ready to begin the second phase of testing. This would entail each dog being given 19 tests in eight different conditions. The dogs would now have to copy a familiar action, a novel action, and a distracting action. The same dogs would then be shown the same novel action to repeat.
Every dog watched their handler go into a wooden box. These dogs would then have to wait for 1 minute before returning to their starting position. They were then told to “Do it.” During the distraction action tests, the dogs were required to watch their handler perform a novel task, such as spinning or touching an object. They were required to replicate it after a delay despite engaging in other activities, demonstrating their ability to focus and recall under varied conditions.
The research by Dr. Adam Miklosi and Claudia Fugazza demonstrates that dogs possess the remarkable ability to imitate novel human actions and retain them in memory through deferred imitation, as evidenced by the 70%+ success rate across eight diverse breeds.
During distraction-action tests, the dogs were made to watch their handler perform a task, then wait and replicate it despite distractions, demonstrating their cognitive flexibility. This finding, rooted in the “Do as I do” method, offers rally trainers a powerful tool to enhance command retention and adaptability.
At the same time, pet owners can foster mental stimulation with varied activities. These insights pave the way for innovative training techniques, strengthening the human-dog bond and unlocking new potentials in canine intelligence.
Copyright © 2013–2025 Claudia Bensimoun, BarkUpToday™
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