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First, we can't think of a dog's memory span in the same way as a human's. As human beings we can pretty much recall any long term memory at will. I like the analogy of a photo album to a dog's memory. A dog takes "snapshots" of moments in its life, that can be recalled when a reminder or a cue is there (smelling a person they have not been around in years will cause them to remember who they are, or being around the garbage can will bring up memories of being yelled at so they will avoid it, etc.) We base our training of dogs on the idea that they have good enough memories to potentially remember hundreds of commands, but at the same time we are told we can't scold a dog unless they have done a bad thing within moments or we catch them in the act. In other words, a dog's memory span can be a few seconds or minutes if we are talking about day-to-day activities (eating, going potty, playing with a toy) that go unoticed by humans or others but years if the proper memory cues are there (familiar commands, smells, sights).

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13y ago

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