If you’ve always thought your dog was smart, then you are right, according to world-first research in Hungary.

Researchers at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest have found that dogs cannot only understand the words we speak, but also how we say them.

The new research — which is the first of its kind— published in the journal Science, found that dogs can distinguish words and the intonation of human speech much as humans do.

The researchers trained a group of dogs to lie motionless in an MRI scanner and played the dogs recordings of words said in a happy or a normal tone of voice to see how they would react.

They then measured which part of their brain was used in response to the words to gauge what reaction the words elicited.

A satirical take on pets’ brains by cartoonist Gary Larson. Source: Gary Larson.

They found that the dogs could tell if the words were positive or negative and could understand the tone of voice used to say them.

When the dog was played a recording of a positive message said in a happy voice, the scans showed the dogs processed that information in the part of the brain that deals with rewards and happy feelings.

One of the researchers, Attila Andics, told the BBC that: “This shows… that dogs not only separate what we say from how we say it, but also that they can combine the two for a correct interpretation of what those words really meant.”