So two dogs walk into the bar looking for Guinness....
Posted on 06/10/2007 8:15:08 AM PDT by blam
Dogs 'as bright as a 14-month-old child'
By Tim Shipman, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:56am BST 10/06/2007
Dog lovers have long argued that their pets are practically human.
Just how close they are to the truth is revealed by research showing that the creatures have the intelligence of a toddler.
As with humans, they have the capacity to decide whether to copy others' behaviour, depending if it makes sense to do so.
Researchers at the University of Vienna trained a female border collie called Guinness to use her paws to push a bar that released a treat, rather than using her mouth as dogs prefer.
Two sets of mixed breed dogs then watched Guinness pushing the bar - one set when she had a ball in her mouth, the other while her mouth was empty. Eight of 10 dogs in a third group that had not seen Guinness perform pushed the bar with their mouths as expected.
The set that saw Guinness perform with her mouth empty copied her action and used their paws, thinking that it must be the best way to achieve success.
However, the group that watched their canine instructor with her mouth full overwhelmingly used their mouths, apparently reasoning that she had only used her paws because her mouth was full.
Lead researcher Friederike Range said: "The fact that the dogs imitate selectively, depending on the situation, has not been shown before… We were very surprised to see this 'selective imitation' by the dogs. They didn't just copy blindly what they saw."
Before dog lovers start drawing up a list of challenges for their clever pets, however, there is one crucial caveat - a dog's intelligence is estimated to be equivalent only to that of a 14-month-old child.
The experiment, published in Current Biology, an American journal, has divided canine experts
In a separate test, toddlers who watched their mother turn on a light switch with her head because she was carrying a tray, were able to judge that she had only done so because her hands were full and that, when possible, they should use their hands for switches.
Zsofia Viranyi, of Eotvos University in Budapest, co-author of the dog study, said: "The behaviour was very similar to the children who were tested in the original experiment.".
Yeah, my Poodles are closer in intelligence to a five year old.
I once had a dog that was so smart it could actually talk. One day I wanted a newspaper but didn’t feel like going out to get one. I handed Spot a twenty-dollar-bill and told him to go get me a paper. Well, I waited about an hour and Spot didn’t show up. Worried, I put my coat on and walked about half a block down the street. What should I see but my valuable dog, humping a female dog right in the middle of the road! Dismayed I said, “Spot! You’ve never done this before!” To which Spot replied, “Yeah, but I’ve never had money!”
All you had to do to set my Beagles off was say “rabbit”.
Then they began learning to spell.
LOL
So two dogs walk into the bar looking for Guinness....
I have one cat that I can tell is smarter than my other cats. Jack. The others will chase the red dot from a laser point until they fall over in exhaustion. Jack slapped at it once with his paw and of course, then it was on top of his paw. He looked at it, looked up at me, looked at the laser pointer in my hand... got this unmistakable look of disgust and irritation on his face, and walked away. To this day I cannot get him to react to the laser. He'll glance once at the dot and just turn his face away.
My parents’ dog not only knows what “walk” is, but she knows what “w-a-l-k” is.
She’s a lab and apparently has not learned what “l-a-k-e” means yet.
I had a big black cat named Psycho who, I am convinced, could tell the difference between English and French. When I started studying French, I’d practice around the house. I would coo “Est-ce que mes chers amis voudraient quelque chose a manger?” and stuff like that, and she’d get very agitated and bump her head against my leg and look up at me as if saying “Stop that.” If I switched back to English, she calm down, but French made her stare at me most unhappily. It was funny.
Typo. If I switched back to English, she *would* calm down...
I have a dog who knows what “beer” is (she absolutely loves beer), and eventually figured out that “b-e-e-r” spells “beer” as well. She’s a smart dog.
That’s nothing.....we had a dog..a cocker....who, when he was a year old, as I was preparing for work (I worked swing shift for a high tech co at the time) came to see me in the bathroom.....I said, “Gus, where’s my watch”....just casually, talking to him, as he and I were the only ones home.....my watch had been missing for a few days. Well....he left, and returned a minute later....WITH MY WATCH!!!
We now have a dog that we spell in front of IF we don’t want her to know something. She has quite the vocabulary understanding!
I think a lot of it depends on training.
All dogs know how to spell V-E-T.
We have had dogs who understand certain spelled words. They would have figured out very quickly that t-0-y spelled toy. I think the words were b-a-l-l and r-i-d-e among others.
One day she was yowling by the door and I was ignoring her. Then she stopped and I heard my keys jingling. I came out of my bedroom to find her heading for the door with my keys in her mouth! I couldn't believe it! I said, "If you take the car, you're in trouble!"
LOL....and THAT’s amazing!
This is really nothing unusual. My pet dog understands both Treat and T-R-E-A-T and go bye bye, he runs for the van and stands there and jumps in when the door is opened. Conditioning.
We raised a guide dog pup and he knew LOTS of words. If I’d spelled them, he would have known them.
He learned he had to wait until i said the magic word (which was merely “OK”) before he ate, went out the door, etc.
He went to the bathroom on command! We’d say “do your business” and if he had to go, he’d go.
Dogs are smart. Now that cat with the keys? that was spectacular.
Ping!
That’s hilarious, and I believe it.
One morning, when I was a kid, the alarm failed to go off. The Siamese was used to being fed first thing, so he woke Mom up by knocking things off the bedside table, making a big racket.
We never overslept for anything, while that cat was alive.
My mastiff, Tinker, is very bright, as well as very kind. I do spell things in front of him. He loves the soft plush dog toys with the squeaker in them, and carries them around. At first, he’d tear them up, but I told him to “be nice to the baby” and since then, he’s built up a collection; he loves getting them for presents. He’ll carry one around for a while, then put it in his toybox, and pick out another. He snuggles them.
Yesterday, my son and his family came to visit. About an hour before they arrived, I told him that they were coming, and he sat by the door watching until they pulled up.
After he eats, his mouth is messy. I say, Let’s wash your face, and he cleans himself up before I can arrive with the towel.
Very nice dog...I think he’s smarter than the average pup.
Awww... he sounds like a sweetie pie!
The smartest dog I ever had was a poodle. He loved squeaky toys and had quite a collection. He knew every single one by name. If you said, “where’s your frog?” he’d run to his toy basket, dig through and bring back the correct toy.
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