It's been proven: your dog can understand exactly what you're saying.

Finally, science has proven something we’ve all, inherently, known: dogs can really, truly, understand us when we speak.

In reality, this is terrible news. If you’re anything like me, your dog probably thinks you’re an emotional mess, with at least three personalities, a bad social media stalking habit and a tragic weakness for anything starring Hugh Grant. But this isn’t about me.

A study, published in Science at the end of August, has shown how a dog’s brain works similarly to a human’s brain in understanding both tone and words.

For humans, we all know the distinction between the two. (If anyone’s ever been told “I’m fine” after accidentally locking someone out of the house on a rainy evening, after being told 300 times to keep the door unlocked, they’ll know that both tone and words are important and things most definitely aren’t ‘fine’.)

But, for the first time, the same listening behaviour has been shown in dogs.

Until now, we didn't know if a dog would only sit because he or she understood the tone of positivity, or the actual words "good boy" or "good girl".

The study was lead by Attila Andics, an enthologist at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary who studies dogs' brains in an attempt to better understand human brains.

In what has to be the best group of research participants ever, 13 pet puppers from Hungary - including six border collies, four golden retrievers, one German shepherd and one Chinese crested - underwent brain scans while listening to recordings of their owners saying various phrases in different tones. (Post continues after gallery.)

Undoubtedly, the biggest challenge of the study was making the participants understand they had to stay still for the brain scans to work.

The dogs heard their owners saying praising words in a praising tone; praising words in a neutral tone; neutral words in a neutral tone; and neutral words in a praising tone.

Results showed the left hemisphere of the dogs' brain lit up in response to words, while the right hemisphere responded to intonation.

The only instance where the brain's reward centre was activated? When both hemispheres received positive inputs. Praising words, delivered in a praising tone, meant the feel-good reward centre was flooded with dopamine.

Turns out saying good things, and really meaning them, is the key to training your pup and encouraging good behaviour.

As for all the other conversations you might have with your pet dog — the questioning and the asking and the "what-happens-if-I...?" deep-and-meaningfuls — there might not be any reward system involved, but your pupper will still understand when you're saying something you don't really mean...

(Well, obviously. Why else would you talk to your dog? People would think you were crazy.)