The researchers reported that dogs process words and their tone independently and on different sides, or hemispheres, of the brain. Moreover, they found that emotional cues like tone were processed on the right side of the brain, while words were processed on the left side – just like in humans. Because the left side of the dog’s brains responded to praise words even when said in a neutral tone, the researchers concluded that dogs possess some ability to understand the meaning of words. But in order for the dog to find praise rewarding, the word meaning and tone needed to match – only praising words said in a praising tone activated reward areas in the dog’s brains.

This was huge news in the field of language processing, especially because it was previously thought that only humans showed a left hemisphere bias for speech processing. It was also big news to the world of dog lovers – the ensuing media explosion was full of articles claiming that science has proved that your dog really understands what you are saying.