NEW YORK — Who’s a good dog?

Well, that depends on whom you are asking, of course. But new research suggests that the next time you look at your pup, whether Maltese or mastiff, you might want to choose your words carefully.

“Both what we say and how we say it matters to dogs,’’ said Attila Andics, a research fellow at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest.

Andics, who studies language and behavior in dogs and humans, along with Adam Miklosi and several other colleagues, reported in a paper to be published in this week’s issue of the journal Science that different parts of dogs’ brains respond to the meaning of a word, and to how the word is said, much as human brains do.

As with people’s brains, parts of a dog’s left hemisphere react to meaning and parts of the right hemisphere to intonation — the emotional content of a sound.

Perhaps most interesting to dog owners, only a word of praise said in a positive tone really made the reward system of a dog’s brain light up.

In other words, “good boy’’ said in a neutral tone and “however’’ said in a positive or neutral tone all got the same response.

What does it all mean? For dog owners, Andics said, the findings mean that the dogs are paying attention to meaning, and that you should, too.

That does not mean a dog won’t wag its tail and look happy when you say, “You stinky mess’’ in a happy voice. But the dog is looking at your body language and your eyes, and perhaps starting to infer that “stinky mess’’ is a word of praise.

New York Times