Dogs learned to bark specifically to communicate with humans.
Wolves didn’t.
Dogs get fed expensive food and sleep in warm beds, without ever having to lift a paw to ‘earn’ it.
Who’s stupid, now?
:)
This has got to be true. I’ve only adopted rescue dogs - each and everyone entered my house smart and cunning and exited dumb and happy. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. My current rescue is generally fairly smart but not nearly as smart as she was two years ago when I first adopted her from a hoarding situation. 100 dogs in a NYC apartment!
Defend the honor of dogs ping!
I had a puzzle box for my blue heeler. It was a hard rubber sphere that I could unscrew and put treats in. Barkley, who was not particularly food obsessed, enjoyed unscrewing it and getting to the treat. Pretty soon he was able to get into the sphere as fast as I could. He knew more words than any dog I’ve ever owned. Some of them were frisbee, walk, perambulate, gorilla (his favorite toy), toy, Biscuit (our other dog), out, load up, the usual sit, stay, wait. Once when he was about 9 months old, we were camping and two little girls ran through our camp. Being a heeler he nipped at their heels. I chewed him out and told him to go to that camp and apologize. He slunk over, went to the pack leader (the mom) and licked her foot.
Civilization is doing that to humans, too.
Government makes net benefit recipients stupid, so I guess this is probably true. :)
My carin terrier can play ball with my one year old. He uses his paws to bounce it to her. He also has figured out how to open doors, sneak food from my kids, and kill rabbits without my wife finding the carcasses. Oh, and he will guard the kids with his life.
Not saying he is smarter than a wolf, but he has figured out things quite well to live a good life.
I personally believe the exact opposite at least in the case of some breeds. Anyone who has ever had a Jack Russell Terrier knows that they are anything but lazy thinkers.
So therefore, to keep your smarts and intellect and be a better person, you must forego civilisation, education and be more like feral animals.
Seems to be progressing in the cities according to doctrine...
We did a pretty good job with the kids, no reason dogs shouldn’t follow.
I absolutely totally agree! In fact sitting on my shelf are several copies of “How to be Leader of the Pack...and Have Your Dog Love You for it!” by Patricia B. McConnell, Ph.D.
We train and condition dogs to recognize the human is their pack leader. So it would only follow that dogs look to their ‘pack leader’ to solve the problems in their lives.
My uncle had a wiener dog named Zilch because that’s all the
dog knew was zilch.
“Hey, cracker. I don’t need to solve no stinkin’ puzzle! Just gibsmedat.” Human training courtesy of fedzilla.
Not stupid, domesticated.
have humans made WELFARE recipients LAZY and STUPID for several generations...???
Ooh, I don’t know about dogs having been made stupid.
They come from the womb, equipped to do the things they need to do, unlike humans.
For example, we just got a chihuahua puppy 3 weeks ago, and it was 6 weeks old. After about a week, it was doing things that human babies can’t do. It eats and drinks on its own (after the food and water are served). It waits to go outside to do its #1 and #2. It runs and plays without supervision. It had a hard time learning how to climb stairs, but, just before it turned 2 months old, it had figured it out on its own. I observed how he was frustrated about not being able to climb even the first step. Then, the puppy took 4 steps back, and with a running start, it went up the stairs with no problem at all. Nobody taught him how to step back and take that running start. We bought him a little kennel 3 days and put a kennel-sized pillow inside, and the puppy figured out that, that was his bed, and he’s been sleeping there ever since. He wants to be held all the time, but, when we tell him “kennel” he knows what we mean and immediately goes to it.
So, what human baby 2 years old can do all of that on his/her own? Heck, even 3-year old kids have a hard time with some of those things that a puppy comes naturally equipped to do.
Basically, they are criticizing dogs for their conditioned response. How many dog owners reward their pets when they misbehave by tearing into things, or bypassing any safeguards the human set in place?
Because dogs are conditioned that following the rules gets them affection and food, the researchers assert the dogs are less intelligent.
hmm. maybe. I had an empty quaker oats box (round one) and put some treats in it then put it on the floor. First time i’d ever done this and my AmStaff immediately took it and put it on the side of his bed to tip it over and dump everything out.