Hey WowsR fams, Mindy here, and before we start the show, guess what? You can join me every Friday for two What's in a Wow people who wow edition. In this Getting to Know You game show, I'll be visited by some of the world's most fascinating people to get the wows and the what's of their lives. From cartoonist and graphic novelist Rana Telgemeier of the Smile series to everyday extraordinary kids just like you. And that's not all. With this new season of Two What's in a Wow, there are now two ways to wow. What am I talking about? Well first, you can listen to episodes right here in our Wow and the World podcast feed. Or… and this is a big Or. Yeah, you're right Reg. That doesn't have the same ring to it. Okay, now where was I? Or… Yeah, as always you can listen to new episodes in your favorite podcast player or you can watch these episodes with your eyeballs on YouTube. I know, I should comb my hair or something. We are so excited for you to listen and watch our new season of Two What's in a Wow, People Who Wow Edition starting this Friday. So make sure you're subscribed to our podcast feed and our Wow Tube channel on YouTube so you don't miss out. That's Two What's in a Wow, People Who Wow Edition coming this Friday. And now a quick ad break and then we'll get on with the show. You know, I don't mean to boast, but my brilliant little boo-boo bear knows 150 words. Okay, it's like I can't even mention the words yo-yo or muffin or phone in conversation without him running off and grabbing one of his toys of the same name. Oh, wow, that's… Astonishing, I know, 150 words. I mean, come on. I mean, someone call it genius. Yeah, genius, right. But enough about me and boo-boo bear. How many words does your little snooter-boodle know? My who? You know your little blipper baby, the one you're here for, the one graduating from the program today. How many words do they know? How many what words? I don't know, like all of them? Oh my, all of them you say. Well, just have to see about that. Hey, Mindy. Sorry to interrupt, but could I get your help with a little situation we're having over by the refreshments table? Oh, sure, Guy Roz. Sorry. I was talking to you, Miss Lady. Oh, it's Diana. Mindy, come on. So sorry, gotta run. Oh, come on. What was that all about? Guy Roz, how many words do you know? What? This brisket tastes like dog food. Madam, that is dog food. Oh boy. I know that. I would like two more, please. Madam, please, these refreshments are for the graduates after the ceremony. Well, I know that. I think, Grandma G. Forrest, maybe just put down the dog trees and leave this poor gentleman alone. Excuse me, sir. Oh, no. These foot baths are a little cold. What? No, get your feet out of the water bowls. Thomas Fingerling, where are your shoes? Oh, hey there, Mr. Ozzie. Okay, everyone, please take your seats. The ceremony is about to begin. Okay, come on, Grandma G. Forrest. Thomas Fingerling, come on. Time to sit down. Well, I ain't going nowhere till I get two more of them little biscuit boys. Grandma G. Forrest, you can have a treat after Dennis' ceremony, okay? Come sit down. You too, Thomas Fingerling. Come on, let's go. No way, dude. I'm in the middle of my bath. Come here, come on. No. Fingerling. No. Let's go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. That's a bad Grandma G. Forrest. Sit. I don't want to do that. Sit. I don't want to do that. Oh, hello again. Having trouble with recall? Huh? You know, basic commands. Sit, stay, roll over. Oh, did somebody say roll over? Okay. Grandma G. Forrest, no. That was a good girl. Now, give me a treat. Of course. But first, you must sit. Sit. Woof. Double woof. What? I'm going to treat for you. There you go. That's good. Come on, everyone. I've got some seats saved for us in the front. All right. Is it just me, Guy Ross, or does something feel really weird about this place? Yeah, it's really strange, Mindy. What exactly did Dennis tell you about the ceremony? Well, he said he's been taking these self-improvement classes. Yeah. He said that they've been helping him to master things like discipline and following instructions and listening skills. Uh-huh. Welcome, everyone. On behalf of the Institute for Better Listening, we are so happy to introduce you to our fine graduates of our six-week Sit, Stay, Snoop Advanced Language Learning Program. Sit, Stay, Snoop. Mindy, what is this? I don't know. Our Listening and Obedience program is based on new research from the University of Budapest. The friends that you're about to meet have developed vocabularies hundreds of words in size. Mindy, did he say obedience program? Oh, boy. Presenting our graduates Banjo, Noodles, Tater Tot the Third, Boo Boo Bear, and the Dennis. What? Dogs? What's left? I'm a good boy. Yes, you are. Treat. Yay! Okay. That's more of a looking dog. Oh, snap. Now, prior to the research from Budapest, we here at the Institute for Better Listening relied on direct instruction in order to teach dogs new words. Direct instruction? Yeah. So, you know, you can use your hands like, you know, sit, stay, holding up a toy and just saying the name of it over and over and over again until the dog starts to connect the name with the toy? Ah, of course. But now, we've learned that a few rare, intelligent dogs have a special skill. A skill that demonstrates the extent of their amazing language learning abilities. And that special skill is… Yes. The skill is… Yes. Win it out, boy. Eavesdropping. Eavesdropping. Otherwise known as snooping. That's right. What, what, what? Okay. This is starting to make a little more sense now. The dogs you see before you here are exceptional. They are what are known as label learners. They can learn to recognize words even when those words are not spoken directly to the dog. Wow. Kiraz, I didn't know dogs can snoop. Me neither. Is that why Dennis is here? To learn how to snoop like a dog? Hello. Hi, it's me, Diana, again. Hi, Diana. Aren't you just so proud of your little pupper snub? Eh. Which one is yours? Ah, that one. Woof woof. I'm a dog. Yes, you are. Treat. Hooray! Oh, my. What breed is he? A very rare breed. A dog. Excuse me. Woof woof. Yes, I see. Now, as I was saying, the dogs here before you are a select, rare, genius-level dog. They can learn and understand the names for hundreds of objects, such as toys. That's right. Genius-level. What? Dennis, sit. Oh, sorry. Sitting down, sir. Good boy. Here at Sit, Stay, Snoop, we evaluate how intelligent our students are by their ability to learn new words through snooping. Wow, so some dogs can learn human words without being taught directly? I guess so. They can learn by eavesdropping or snooping in on human conversations? Oh, yes. My dog, Boo Boo Bear, is a gifted word learner. I have a bumper sticker on my car to prove it. I enrolled him in Sit, Stay, Snoop to determine if he is a label learner. Label learner? Well, a label learner is a description of a dog's ability. It means not only can that dog learn a command word like sit or stay, but they can also learn the names of specific objects, like spaceship or dolphin. Interesting. Can any dog be trained to be a label learner? Oh, heavens, no. You see, a label learning dog is a very rare thing. For example, my Boo Boo Bear is a highly sophisticated border collie. In fact, you didn't hear this from me, but some of his relatives were used in the actual experiment conducted for the study that this class is based on. Wait, his relatives? Oh, yes. This experimental research from Budapest was conducted on a group of ten dogs, all deemed label learners. Now, most of the label learners were herding dogs breeds like border collies like my Boo Boo Bear and Australian shepherds. Of course, herding dogs. Those types of dogs are known to pay especially close attention to humans. Exactly. See, herding dogs are prized for their ability to pay close attention to what their owners say and do. Huh, so herding dogs are good snoopers. Well, yes, I suppose you could say that herding dogs are natural born snoopers. However, one of the dogs in the study was actually a Labrador Retriever. So label learning dogs can be found in other breeds too? It would appear so. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we would like to have our graduates demonstrate for you how they learn. A process we call sit, stay, snoop. Can I have two volunteers, please? Oh, oh, me, pick me. I love to volunteer. Wonderful. You there. Me? Oh, no, next to you, the lady in the lumpy leotard. Who's he talking to? He's talking to you, GeForce. What? Well, I have you know that this is a leotard and these lumps and pennies are fished out of the mall fountain. Excellent. Please come to the stage and bring that gentleman next to you. Who me? Go up there, Thomas Fingerling. Come on, Fingerling. We're volunteers. OK, fine. Now, to demonstrate how intelligent our graduates are. I believe the word you are looking for is genius. Dennis, no barking now. Oh, sorry. Yes, teacher. To demonstrate how genius our graduates are, we will teach them a new label right here, right now. OK, Grandma GeForce. What? Please select a dog toy from this basket. OK, I want this one. Oh, no, that is the basket itself. Please select a toy from the basket. I want this one. Ooh, good choice. The sugar donut plushie. Oh, let me see, let me see. Dennis, sit. Sitting. Stay. I'm staying. Snoop. Yes, sir. Now what? Now what? Now, this toy, the sugar donut plushie, is unknown to our dogs. They have never seen it before and are going to learn the name of it. OK, I get it. Come here, doggies. Watch and learn. This thing here is called a disco bagel. You got that? Disco bagel. No, no, no. Grandma GeForce, we're not teaching the dogs directly. What do you mean? Eh, what do you mean? I mean, these dogs are geniuses. We don't need to teach them by addressing them directly. These dogs can learn the name of that toy by eavesdropping on your human conversation about the toy. So what? You just want me to talk to Fingerling about it? Exactly. You and Thomas Fingerling are going to talk to each other about this sugar donut plushie toy. You're going to say the name of it to each other and these dogs will learn. OK, here we go. Hey Fingerling, look at this disco bagel. Oh, that's a very nice disco bagel you got there, GeForce. Huh, disco bagel. What an interesting name. You're doing great. Let the dogs see the disco bagel, but do not look at them. Do not address the dogs. Just talk to each other. Well, this disco bagel is very round. It don't got no corners. See? Uh-huh. Disco bagel. And this disco bagel is brown. Yeah, brown disco bagel. And there is a hole through the middle of this disco bagel and I do not know what happened to it. Interesting. A little hole in the disco bagel. And this disco bagel is covered in sparkly sugar. Disco bagel. I get it. I get it too. What? What? OK, that should do it. Now, in both the experiment and our class, after the dogs eavesdropped on the humans talking about the new toy, we put the new toy into a bunch of other toys that the dogs already know the names of. Grammar GeForce. What? Please place the sugar donut. Disco bagel. Uh, right. Please place the disco bagel into this toy basket. OK, here basket. Here's a disco bagel. Hope you like it. Oh, toys! Park, park, park! Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me! Quiet, please. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Now, each dog will demonstrate its snooping ability. Banjo, come. Come Banjo. Good Banjo. Oh, good boy. Now, Banjo, go get the disco bagel. Good Banjo. That is the disco bagel. Very good. Here, Miss GeForce, put this disco bagel back into the toy bin, please. Why do I do everything around here? Their basket. Noodles, come. Good Noodles. OK, go get the disco bagel. Go on, Noodles. Go get it. Good Noodles. That is the disco bagel. So good. Wow, this is bonker balls, Guy Roz. These dogs all seem to be able to understand and remember the name of the toy. Yeah. Do you think all the dogs here will be able to find the disco bagel? I believe so. I heard that the scientists ran this experiment with their dogs several times over several days. Tater Tot the third. Come. Oh, good Tater Tot. Now, go get the disco bagel. And you didn't hear this from me, but they discovered that these intelligent dogs were able to grab the correct item 80% of the time. Just from snooping? Yes, can you believe it? That's incredible. Good job, Tater Tot the third. That is the disco bagel. Good boy. Boo boo bear, come. Oh, that's my boo boo bear. You can do it, boo boo bear. Mommy loves you. Oh, good boo boo. OK, now go get the disco bagel, boo boo bear. Yes. This Diana treats her dog like it's a real human baby. You know, Mindy, dogs aren't the only ones that snoop on conversation in order to learn new words. Really? There are other animals that do this? Yes, humans, specifically human babies. Oh, yeah. Human babies learn words by hearing other humans talk to each other too. Exactly. So what you're saying is that dogs are babies. What? No. So what you're saying is that babies are snoops? Oh, Mindy, that's not... well, yes, I guess I am kind of saying that babies are snoops. I knew it. But by babies, I don't mean infants. Humans start snooping, I mean, learning words through eavesdropping at around two years old. So toddlers. Snooping toddlers. Interesting. Do you think these label learning dogs are actually learning like toddlers, Kairas? I don't know for sure. It looks like it and it's very impressive, but it's possible something else is going on. You know, in 2004, there was another study involving a border collie like my Boo Boo Bear and this border collie named Rico could learn the names of new objects through the process of elimination. The process of elimination. I mean like crossing off the answers that are wrong so it's easier to find the right one? You didn't hear that from me. Wow, that's really advanced. Dennis, come. Woof, woof, woof. Bark, bark. Here I am. Oh, that's a good boy, Dennis. It's Dennis' turn. Let's see if he's a genius label learner too. He really is an ugly dog, isn't he? This is so strange. Hey, Ross, be supportive. You got this, Dennis. Okay, Dennis, go get the disco bagel. Woof, woof, woof. Can do. Here you go. Oops, sorry, Dennis. This isn't the disco bagel. This is a normal bagel with cream cheese. Oh, whoops. Let me try again. Here we go. Woof, woof. No, Dennis, this is a disco ball. What? That's what I thought you said. I'll be right back. This is not good. Yeah, maybe Dennis isn't ready to graduate after all. Here, this one is definitely the one. Oh, sorry, Dennis. This is a donut with pink frosting and multi-colored sprinkles. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Dennis. Oh boy. This one? No, that's a pineapple. This one? No, that's a pretty little princess. This one? No, that's a basketball wearing sunglasses. Come on. This one? No, that's a squirrel with a foofy tail. Wow In The World will be right back. Grown-ups, this message is for you. That's it. Back to the show. Hi, thanks for calling Wow In The World. After the beep, get ready to record. Hi, this is Oliver from Rhode Island. My Wow In The World is that on Uranus and Neptune, it probably rains diamonds. Hi, Mending Gyroth. My name's Mila and I live in Satterton, Pennsylvania. My Wow In The World is that raspberries are a member of the Rose family. They're not part of the Berry family. Say hi to Reggie, Dennis. Hi there. Grandma G-Force and Thomas Fingerling for me. Wow. Bye. Hey, Wow In The World. My name's Davis and I'm from Auburn, Washington. My Wow is that, did you know that short chicken actually sort of feels like sandpaper? Super weird because they live under water. Please say hi to Grandma G-Force. Oh yeah. Reggie, Dennis. Hi there. Reggie. Yay. Static man. I am Static Man. And Bucky and Thomas Fingerling. Cool, dude. Bye. Hi, I'm Emily and I'm from the USA in San Jose. And My Wow In The World is that humans have the same amount of neck bones that giraffes do. Say hi to Reggie for me. My name is Ethan and I'm from the Dallas, Oregon. And my Wow is that girls could understand sign language. Hi, I'm Indy and Guy Ross. I'm Layla and I'm Elliot and we're from Boston. And Our Round The World For You is that, did you know that otters have pockets in their armpits to floor rocks in to crack their food open? They also hold their hands from their sleeping to not drift away. Say hi to Dennis. Hi. Reggie. And baby Dennis. Of course. Yay. See you later. Bye. End of messages. Before we get into the credits for today's episode, we want to give some special shoutouts and say a huge thank you to some of the Wousers whose families are powering the Wow this year. We broke the names up into two batches and here is our first batch of names. We are so grateful for your support. Owen and Aubrey from California. Saman and Ryan from California. Aureline and Esther from New York. Ella from Singapore. Lacey Elementary from North Carolina. Teddy, Silas and Emmett from Arizona. Jason from Texas. Eli and Nolan from Texas. Luke and Noel from North Carolina. Ilan from California. Emmett and Adler from Kansas. John, Katie, Ethan and Amelia from Pennsylvania. Nezla and Yaqub from Kuwait. Evelyn, Ramona and Cabatha from Nevada. John R from Wisconsin. Emery and Ila from California. Caroline from Massachusetts. Ian and Declan from Washington. Elena and Lucia from Maryland. Parker from Texas. Edward and Lulu from Brighton, England. Hayden, Hazel and Allie from Pennsylvania. Magnus from the District of Columbia. William and Allie from Virginia. Brendan, Jessica, David and Michael from Ohio. Bailey, Macy and Hank from South Carolina. James from Washington. Peter, Teddy and Leo from Minnesota. Paul from Rhode Island. Nuri from Washington. Violet and Will from California. Audrey and Ethan from Virginia. Alex H from Tennessee. James and Madison from Utah. And happy birthday to Otis from Minnesota. From the bottom of our hearts. And the tops of our brains. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of Wow in the World. If you're a kid with a big wow to share with us, call our Wow Hotline at 1-888-7-WOW-WOW for a chance to be featured at the end of the show. And while you're at it, head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Leave us five stars and tell us what Wow is you about our show by leaving a review. Or send us a comment on Spotify. You just might hear your reviewsy read by Dennis on We Wow on the weekend. Visit us at tinkercast.com and become a member of the World Organization of Wowsers. With that, you'll get year-round mailings in your mailbox, weekly activities, birthday cards, and more. On tinkercast.com, you can also shop our Wow Shop, get tickets for upcoming live events, find our books, toys, and science kits, and learn all about the other amazing podcasts from Tinkercast. Once again, that's tinkercast.com. Wow in the World is written by Mindy Thomas and Tom Van Calken with contributions from me, Guy Ross. Original sound design and music editing is done by Tyler Thull with help from our senior production director, Jed Anderson, and audio producer, Henry Moskel. You can also hear Jed Anderson in the voices of Dennis, Thomas Fingerling, Reggie, and many of the other silly characters you hear on our show. Jessica Bodie keeps our fact straight as our fact checker, Steph Sosa keeps our heads on straight as our executive producer, and Meredith Halpern-Ranzer powers the Wow at Tinkercast. Our theme song was composed and performed by three-time Grammy nominees, The Pop-Ups. Find them at thepopups.com. Special thanks to our team, including Kristen Yang, Tui Mac, Ali Paxima, Linda Rothenberg, and Anna Zagorski, and all of the other tinkers at Tinkercast HQ. Grownups, you can follow Wow in the World on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Wow in the World, and our email address is hello at tinkercast.com. Thanks for listening. Find episodes of Wow in the World every Monday, two What's in a Wow every Friday, right here and on YouTube. And don't forget We Wow on the Weekends with Dennis every Saturday and Sunday right here in the Wow in the World podcast feed. Until then, keep on wowing! Wow in the World, Wow in the World! Wow in the World was made by Tinkercast.
