Talk:Dog intelligence/Archive 1

intelligence- wide range
intelligence is many different things. like my dogs knows plenty of commands or tricks if you will, but is a dog that doesn't know any stupid? no, maybe the dog that knows no tricks was never taught and they do say it's harder to teach an old dog tricks. so intelligence is such a wide subject that you can't really pen-point-it to any one thing. like is albert einstien stupid because he couldn't spell? no he was good in science and not english. dogs same way- one might be good at commands and one might be good at "common sence". &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.238.101.92 (talk &bull; contribs).


 * Exactly the point of the article. At least, I hope it's clear that that's the point! (BTW, in my experience, an old dog is no harder to teach tricks to than a younger dog--in particular, if the dog is accustomed to learning things.)  05:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

"Talking" Dogs?
I have on several occasions seen videos on television and elsewhere of "talking" dogs. These dogs, when given a specific command or question by a human, will respond with a sound resembling a word or phrase such as "yes" or "I love you". I was wondering if this behavior has been studied at all by scientists, whether it is a similar ability to that exhibited by parrots and other birds, and whether it correlates at all with the intelligence of the animal. If there has been anything noted on the subject I think it is definitely worth mentioning in this article. -- Grandpafootsoldier 04:28, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Biased Much?
This article does not seem to be reasearched, yet a bunch of dog lovers thoughts about dog intellect. A brain size and surface area should be added. B katt 500 03:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah. It seems to decribe the habits of the owners rather than the natural mental abilities of dogs. Teemu Ruskeepää 13:23, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Intelligence, in my opinion, is being able to figure things out, not just follow commands and other silly stuff. If intelligence is only the ability of following commands, then we humans must be extremly dumb. B katt 500 18:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * You can train the least intelligent dog on the earth.An intelligent dog can outsmart its owner,get around out of its yard,and stuff like that.--70.165.71.229 22:17, 5 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that the article is not well researched, but I don't see a dog lover bias in it. Maybe something got editted out, maybe I'm missing something.  My biggest complaint would be that there wasn't very much information in it at all. I don't see a need to fo brain size to be mentioned at all as brain size is not a valid measure of intelligence (perhaps you meant relative to body mass?).  Even surface area isn't a definitive measure.  Check out this article: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/kinser/Int1.html .  To spoil it a bit "it is probable that the volume of nerve cells may be relatively irrelevant in a discussion of intelligence."  Thus Spaketh Dave? 17:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Increasing your dog's intelligence
If you have a good natural gesture communication with your dog, you can try the following: The task of thinking is to form a correct picture of the environment. That is very close to the task of the senses. If the dog manages to be clear headed about what is where of its experiences, it can learn things quicker. So encourage the dog to use the sense of sight even when it is naturally concentrated mainly on muscle sensations, smells or social life. That can make your dog clear-headed. In addition, encourage your dog to use its senses and listen to its sensations and feelings, so as to observe things better instead of acting out of the memory, or solely out of social kind of guesses of what you want from it. InsectIntelligence (talk) 07:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Merge with The Intelligence of Dogs
Why should there be two articles on a topic so similar? --YoavD 08:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The proposal has been made to merge the article about the book The Intelligence of Dogs into this article. Briantresp (talk) 18:49, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Seems a little absurd to me, since there are two full NYT articles about the book, clearly showing its notable on its own account. I've commented further there. His thesis, however unpopular, should be mentioned and cited and linked to him and the book in this article as well--much better than listing the article on the book as a see also. Personally, I have no particular opinion about the intelligence of dogs, except the unscientific observation each owner thinks highly of his own. Myself, I prefer cats. :) DGG (talk) 12:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

pack animals
Much of the discussion of dog intelligence is based on them being pack animals (like their ancestors, wolves). But feral dogs, while cooperative hunters, are not pack animals. The assertion that dogs are pack animals needs a citation, as it is controversial among experts (i.e. non-dog-whisperers). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.23.124.21 (talk) 02:21, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Dog intelligence test is faulty
The only dog intelligence test that I have heard of is the following: put the dog on a long leash so that the leash goes around a pole, so shortening, and put s food bowl in front of the dog. The dog ought not to reach the bowl. The dog does not understand yjsay it should walk around the pole to get a longer leash, so reaching the food bowl. I think that there are two serious faults with this test: 1) the stimulus of a food bowl is too strong, making thinking impossible. And 2) the dog has been conditioned to a leash: it finds the situationb a social one, one to be solved by persistence and social communication rather than with spatial (or whatever) problem solving skills. A dog can learn to go around a pole by himself, my puppy has! On a walk he undertands the command "This side" meaning: go around the pole so as to unfasten the leash. InsectIntelligence (talk) 14:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

A better measure of dogs' intelligence than intelligence tests and the number of tricks learned could be the fact that puppies grow to different kinds of dogs when with different owners: almost all that the puppy does to adabt to its living environment is a measure of its understanding which is thus much greater than the learning of a few tricks when especially taught. So please measure dogs' intelligence by the measure stick of life: by the ability to live a happy satisfying life in the circumstances that one happens to have. Amazingly many dogs survive that test, bringing joy and comfort to their owners too, even though the dogs do not have our habitual ways of thinking which are partly a consequence of the upbrining and the education that we have had - of things that the dog just does not have any experience of. InsectIntelligence (talk) 07:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I tried this with my rottweiler, and she had no trouble wahtsoever walking around the pole with her leash on so she could reach the bowl.

I positioned the bowl in various places and she just looked down at her leash and adjusted accordingly. Some dogs have no issues solving problems, others just can't be arsed, and others are just too eager/stimulated by the food to think clearly. All in all they are clever little rascals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.216.111.213 (talk) 02:18, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The dog that arranges geometrical shapes
Ok, I have no sources so I shall not write this on the page. But I once saw on a documentary about dog intelligence, and there is a dog that arranges geometrical shapes with certain toys. Scientists studied this dog, and belive it is trying to communicate with its owner in an intelligent way. 88.105.20.101 (talk) 21:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

comment
did the best copyedit I could. If anyone thinks it needs more, please put the tag back.

I have a dog. If you put a blanket over her, she turns in circles until she gets tangled up and falls over. Not very intelligent. I had one that did funny things to my leg, that's not very intelligent either.


 * Funny, I know a couple of infants that will do about the same thing when covered with a blanket (or even just cry and make no attempt to escape). They must be extremely unintelligent (especially since they are of a supposedly more intelligent species than your dog) according to your logic. The_Irrelevant_One 00:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, it says that they are of the same intelligence. Animal intelligence is often compared to humans'.  And because very young babies can't solve very many problems, animal intelligence often compared to new-borns and infants intead of adult humans. B katt 500 01:17, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Note the same text is posted on another website

http://www.tagate.com/dog/page/dog_intelligence.shtml

My dog (a purebred Maltese) is a very intelligent dog. She knows how to play "peek-a-boo", she knows when I say you we are going to the vet or to the groomer, she immediately starts jumping around and runs to the door. If I say "do you want to go pee pee", she runs to the door and waits. I could name quite a few things that when I say it, she know exactly what I am talking about. So YES, dogs are intelligent. I think we as humans don't want to admit that we might NOT be the smartest animals on the planet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.122.253.54 (talk) 20:32, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

citation
'Kathy Coon' is linked twice, 'The Dog Intelligence Test' is linked once; neither links are valid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.19.142.10 (talk) 22:31, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to merge with Dog training
The vast majority of this flawed article seems to reference dog training. The Testing and research section contains either off-topic references or research that has been conducted to prove out dog training. I propose merging this article into Dog training. Briantresp (talk) 19:07, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose. They are two seperate subjects that warrant their own articles.--Metalhead94 (talk) 02:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Strongly oppose. Different topics. Although Stanley Coren used trainability as part of his definition of intelligence, it does not mean that they are the same thing. --Hafwyn (talk) 00:17, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose the two topics are not equivalent to each other. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:51, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Hafwyn. Intelligence that relates to dog training is only a small part of dog intelligence. The article needs expansion, not merging. --Geronimo20 (talk) 05:36, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose Dog training is about making the dog obedient. If a man was totally obedient to others most of us would regard him as pretty stupid. Obedience is NOT intelligence. Quite the opposite, IMHO. HiLo48 (talk) 06:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Hounds
I have modified and clarified the nature and evaluation of the intelligence of the Hound group, in the paragraph involved. 66.108.89.8 (talk) 16:50, 6 March 2010 (UTC)Allen Roth
 * Hi Allen, can you find a citation to support the statements? Barnabypage (talk) 17:03, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Certain breeds....are thought to be "smarter"...
By whom? This sentence is in the lead of an article which spends much of its time telling us how difficult it is to measure dog intelligence. There is no reference for the claim. I believe it serves no purpose and is confusing. HiLo48 (talk) 05:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. --132.198.39.35 (talk) 00:05, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Lots of speculation/lack of citations.
Maybe I'm not the only one to notice this, but this article is fairly popular and missing a lot of citations. It reads almost like a piece of first-hand study, not an encyclopedia article. It needs more citations to base it in fact. I would suggest that everything not cited be removed immediately.

Regards, Darren 93.196.191.189 (talk) 23:47, 20 March 2013 (UTC)