WARBIRD: How Smart Are Dogs?

[Tucker's Mom]

To dog owners --- and of course...Warbird...

 

[BC1]

Well, they sleep when they're tired, eat when they're hungry, don't get ulcers, don't have stressful lives, kick their kids out at an early age and don't worry about retirement. Sounds pretty smart to me.

 

[Treo]

They get, free room and board, free medical & dental, free toys etc. Sounds like we're the dumb ones

 

[crowsnake]

Footstools thief's, blanket hogs, bossy & Demanding. We are the slaves.

 

[Tucker's Mom]

aw ....you love them anyway...I would rather trust my dog than some people...:smile:

 

[fstroupe]

It was a pretty cool clip. Haven't watched NOVA in quite some time. But I do have to ask:

This is news? (to the scientists or media?) If you have ever seen a dog that has successfully gone through Schutzhund training you know that dogs are capable of things that require fairly high intelligence. (compared to what the Nova clip asserts that scientists knew)

I have owned/seen extremely intelligent dogs, dogs with average intelligence, and dogs that were quite dumb. Some breeds are known for their intelligence, such as the border collie in the clip. Schnauzers are also known to be intelligent, and owning one, I can attest to that.

But pretty much every trick that you can teach a dog still involves repetitious memory. If you have the time and patience, and a big fat research check from some college (who got a bigger fatter check from the government), you could teach a reasonably intelligent dog to recognize hundreds of different toys. I've never really tried at all, but the dog we have who considers herself "mine", knows the difference when I tell her to get "her ball", "her baby", and "her toy". My son's boxer knows the name of probably 10 toys.

Did the dog pick "Darwin" due to reasoning? It appeared that he did, though we don't know if that was one of the methods used by the Ph.D. I'd say that some dogs are capable of extremely simple reasoning. But usually it is either memory or one of their senses. About 25% of the time, each of my four dogs understand what I mean when I am pointing at something. But I guarantee that if I placed some food under a cup, they would know which one it was under whether I was pointing at it or not and whether there was 2 cups or 20.

As far as "love" for a human, no animal gets as excited as a dog does when you get home, etc. I have to say that it is more than reflex or whatever. I probably agree somewhat with the scientist, that something happened during the domestication process. Though I do question that dogs are simply evolved wolves, having been around most of the different types of dog (working dogs, hunting dogs, gaming dogs, etc), I'd say that the evolution process was much more complicated than that.

It's weird, of our four dogs, one considers herself mine, two considers themselves my wife's, and the other is pretty much a family dog that we've had for over 13 years. But it is obvious that all consider me the "alpha male" and recognize my authority. (drives my wife nuts)

All in all a good clip. Wish I could get some of that cash to stay home and watch my dogs all day lol.

 

[Tucker's Mom]

We've owned a border collie mix with Australian Shepherd. Intelligent dog...but watch that gate -- We just couldn't drum it in her mind that the gate is not a starting point to a "run!". Then after being stalked in Sacramento, I was given a rottweiler. Ended up training rottweilers and German Shepherds at weekends police to give back to the community what the police had given me. He was the most intelligent dog I have ever had. Equally intelligent is my second rottweiler...was a week shy of going to an SAR course when he died. Now we have Tucker, a year and a half behind the brains department compared to my other two that passed away. He is my husband's dog. The first two are mine. I had taught it to "talk" to us if he wants something...ice cream, treat, going out, coming inside the house, etc. no bark, just talk. Like the guy in the video said, he trained his dog 5 hours/day for 3 months. Those crucial constant 3 months is the most important of all training when you want your pet to achieve something...

 

[Babarock]

Who picks up who's poop? Nuf said.

I like and trust dogs much better than most people.

 

[Warbirds]

Thx for the video. We are still adjusting to having a puppy in the house. I can't wait till he is potty trained, I haven't even had enough time to read any recent posts since we are so focused on keeping the carpet clean.

I just want to know how a puppy so small howls like a dog 10 times his size.


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[localgirl]

Thx for the video. We are still adjusting to having a puppy in the house. I can't wait till he is potty trained, I haven't even had enough time to read any recent posts since we are so focused on keeping the carpet clean.

I just want to know how a puppy so small howls like a dog 10 times his size.


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Warbirds, check out the Monks of New Skete books on raising puppies/dogs. It basically involves crate training and hanging a bell on the door. I used it with my last puppy, and he had only ONE accident in the house. The catch is, any time the dog asks to get out of his crate, you respond, and any time he rings his bell to go out, you respond, It means a very busy first month or two, but it's totally worth it.

 

[Tucker's Mom]

Dogs howls because it is their means of communication to other animals. When they hear a siren and howls with it, s/he assumes someone of the same kind is "talking" to him/her and s/he is basically saying "I'm here!" Lonely dogs communicates with howls informing others of their presence. My dog howls with the fire siren but not with a police siren passing by the house...as long as the siren doesn't stop at our door, we are pleased. I encourage my dog to "talk" to us about anything...but one thing they will not talk about is if they are feeling pain inside their body. Ever since we lost Coopers, I have been very alert about how my dog feels. We hope it does not happen again and Tucker will live with us for a much longer time. So you can just imagine why even a small puppy will communicate loudly to other dogs in the neighbourhood of its presence in your house. What we prevent is incessant barking.

Oh btw, make sure you have asked your vet to give your puppy a blood test. We got Coopers from the humane society and we didn't know about "blood tests" at the time. We lost Coopers from canine renal failure.

 

[Ringo]

Dogs may be dumb, but they're certainly not stupid. There's a big difference.

 

[Tucker's Mom]

Our dog is NOT dumb just that sometimes he is challenged. If you make the instructions you give to him fun he responds all the time. Everything is a game to him. I train my dog everyday especially the one foreign phrase that means "Attack!" You'll never know when you are going to use it one day.