Owners are probably saying ”we could have told you that.”

Researchers in Hungary investigated and recorded the brain activity of dogs, confirming they not only understand the words we speak but also how we say them.

The study shows our four-legged friends can distinguish words and the intonation of human speech much as we do.

The research involved exposing dogs to recordings of their trainers’ voices, who spoke to them with a range of vocabulary and intonation, in both praising and neutral ways.

An MRI scanner revealed the dogs could recognize each word as distinct as well as the way it was said.

Positive words in a positive tone prompted the strongest activity in the reward centers of the dogs brains.

The study conducted at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest is published in the journal ‘Science’.