As someone who grew up in a family of pet owners, the joke is anytime there is a story with "study" and "dog", that any dog owner could have told them that. This study is what we refer to as the "invisible leash" that dogs have with with their masters. The article also touches on mirroring behavior, which is also well known and even has a whole class of dog training based around it called "Do as I Do"[1] I trained my dog this way as a pup. AMA.
Dogs spend their lives trying to figure out what we want and the meaning of our words. Science has year to catch up to learn just how much they understand and how in-tune they are with their adopted pack.