Slowly, but surely, the scientific community is catching up with us dog-lovers who know that dogs are smarter than most people (especially scientists) think.

In the past, the logic has gone something like, “Dogs can’t work a Rubik’s Cube, so they must not be as smart as people. Or, “Dogs can’t solve math problems, so they aren’t very smart.”

But most of us who own dogs — and have had close relationships with them — know better. We’ve watched our pets solve hard problems, like “How do I get the dog treat (or a carrot, or some sting cheese) out of the Kong toy?” Callie was doing this today, in her crate, by picking up the Kong toy and dropping it on the floor of the crate, with a big “thump.” Sometimes, when she dropped the toy, the food would stick out a little more, and Callie would grab a lick or a bite. It sounded like someone playing basketball, with the constant “thumping.”

Jamie’s favorite thing to do was to swim in Lake Arrowhead and retrieve her “floppy disc,” a pink, floating frisbee-like toy. This was one of the most fun parts of writing “My Doggie Says… Messages from Jamie.” Because it revealed Jamie’s ability to work through a whole sequence of “problems,” in order to do what she wanted to do more than anything else in the world.

It started when I took my green backpack out of the front closet.

This was Jamie’s signal that we were going to the lake. Next, Jamie would wait by the door until we took her to the car. Once we arrived at the lake, she literally dragged us step-by-step to our boat dock, which she could distinguish from the other boat docks. She knew right where it was. Then she walked to the west dock-box (not the east one) because she knew her Floppy was in that one. Then she stood and waited until I opened the dock box and got her Floppy.

Once Jamie had her Floppy in her mouth, she stood by the gate, waiting for me to open it. Then she ran down the gangway and dropped her Floppy on the boat dock, until I threw it into the lake. Then, finally, she jumped into the lake and retrieved her Floppy, which was her absolute favorite thing to do. But she had the whole process orchestrated, from the minute the green backpack came out of the closet.

So we know dogs are very smart.

The good news is that science is finally catching up with us. Friederike Range and his colleagues from the University of Vienna, Austria, created an experiment that demonstrated that dogs could be trained to recognize the concept of “dog.” After a training phase, the dogs were able to distinguish between photographs of dogs (different shapes, sizes and numbers) and photographs of scenic landscapes. So the dogs were able to understand the concept of “dog.”

Here, from Science Daily, is an article that describes the experiment. And here, from Britain’s “Telegraph,” is another version.

What’s the smartest thing your dog does? Pay attention to how it solves little problems, and you’ll have a greater appreciation for its intelligence.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 1st, 2007 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Books, Callie, Dog Communication, Dog Talk, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.