When I was a young man, I had a buddy who had his dog trained to fetch him beers. No kidding. Of course, when he brought home a 12-pack, he had to put them on the bottom shelf of his refrigerator, out of the carton, spaced out some so his dog could get hold of them. But with that done, he would sit on his couch, say, “Spot, fetch a beer,” and the dog, a middling-sized dog-pound mutt, would nose open the refrigerator door, grab a cold one in his jaws, and bring it out to the living room. The first time I saw it, my buddy tossed me the first beer, waved at the dog, “Spot, fetch a beer,” and the dog brought him one.
It’s amazing what you can teach dogs to do, and they do very well with verbal commands, even when referring to specific objects. So it’s a little bemusing to see a group from Budapest’s Eotvos Lorand University spending some time confirming what dog people have always…
