Some dogs can classify their toys by function
(arstechnica.com)53 points by pseudolus 3 days ago
53 points by pseudolus 3 days ago
Wife has a guide dog Labrador trained from a puppy incredibly well behaved and when on harness total worker focused and its interesting what she does and doesnt play with when not working. She has a stuffed animal that she sleeps with and never carries anywhere then another that she does. She loves a donut nylabone but not a bone shaped one. Shes also learned that there are toys she can bring over like a tennis ball to you that will distract YOU and therefor she can get a sneak of a lick off your plate. We’ve had to correct that a few times but she is just too smart she keeps learning new methods.
Our golden retriever knows the difference between her tug toys, plushie toys and chew toys. When we ask her to put her toys away she used to only collect the plushies and put them in the basket. We had to do extra training to get her to associate clean up with all types.
Our German Shepherd is as particular about her toys as her food.
She mainly likes squeaky plush toys, doesn't like rope toys at all. She also likes tennis balls which is a completely different game to the ones she plays with the plushies.
The smell factor might explain why she initially turns completely off a favourite toy after it goes through the wash.
I have a doodle and he knows each of his toys by name; the monkey, the ball, the lama etc. He's very picky with what he wants to play with so if he brings a specific toy over and you choose another one he'll respond by whining and make a big deal about it lol