Caesar, and now Sasha and Ruby, all “good natured” friendly dogs.
But just as with people, there is a wide range when it comes to cognitive abilities of our canine companions.
Sort of.
My Ibizan Hounds are the most “untrainable” dogs I’ve ever had...however, if I were stranded in the wilderness with no food, they’re the dogs I’d want with me.
They run down, kill and return food to their owner because it is their nature.
They are brilliant at it, especially in a pack.
The Dobermann is the exact opposite.
He does have a high prey drive but lacks the speed of the Ibizans since his ‘prey’ was intended to be relatively slow humans rather than gazelles.
Which one is “smarter”?
Neither.
“Dog intelligence” is an artificial construct centered around the dog’s ability to follow arbitrary commands given by people rather than rating them on their nascent ability to perform the tasks for which they were created.
They are equally brilliant at the tasks for which they were bred and born.
Odin is a bit special because the Ibizans ‘raised’ him.
He understands how to hunt with their pack and has mastered the ‘unusual’ kill technique of Sight Hounds.
Instead of coming up under the throat like most dogs do, he comes down from above, in order to instantly snap a neck as they do.
The upside to that is not ever worrying much if another dog ever tries to attack him.
If some dog ducks to low to go for his throat, he’s just going to feel happy that they so cheerfully offered him the back of their neck.
[it looks scary but that is also how they all play-fight together]
Dogs are obviously capable of natural adaptive behavior far beyond what they were ‘bred for’.
All dogs are miracles.
Consider the simple fact that they have managed to learn a *lot* of our words [in unlimited languages, no less] yet we have yet to truly learn a single one of theirs.
:)