Some of the criticisms that have been listed in the “horses are dumb” camp are only the aninal demonstrating its nature as a prey animal.
A horse is no “stupider” to run from a sudden noise or movement than a dog is “stupid” to chase a car. One is exhibiting it’s prey animal instincts, and the other its predator instincts. Likewise the example of a horse jumping over a damp spot in the road. Horses have an extremely limited field of stereo vision and hence limited depth perception. They cannot easily distinguish between a shadow and a shadowy ditch. However through exposure they CAN learn to distinguish between the two and respond accordingly, as well as learn to do other tasks involving judging depth & distance, such as jumping obstacles. They are exceptionally good at memorizing sequences of actions in response to prompts, when cause and effect are closely tied. They can also be desensitized to stimulus, in the example of police horses.
It may be that the smartest of dogs is smarter than the smartest of horses. However I’ve known some damn stupid dogs* in my day, stupider than any horse I’ve ever encountered, so I hesitate to say that as a group dogs are entirely more intelligent. It may be that the variation in their intelligence is greater. See my graph below.
I do not know for a fact but it would not surprise me that dogs (or any animal) can be mentally handicapped in the same ways we understand humans can be. I’ve known a few dogs that seemed bewilderingly dumb. Genetics? Environment? Got hit with the stupid stick? I have no clue.
That said I would find the dog that is dumber than a horse an aberration and not representative of dogs in general. I have known many, many dogs (worked in an animal shelter for awhile besides my own dogs as well as knowing most neighborhood dogs better than I know my neighbors) and many horses (had two horses growing up and went to Culver Military Academy and was part of the Black Horse Troop there). That may not make for scientific proof but enough personal experience that I trust my judgement on this till someone does produce clear proof to the contrary.
I do not think a horse is “dumb” because it displays prey animal behavior. I do think predators generally have to be smarter than their prey however. Certainly when the prey is much, much bigger and faster than the predator is. If the predator dog wants horse for dinner it needs a plan. The horse on the other hand never had a evolutionary imperative to be smarter…just faster and maybe bigger. As mentioned earlier a horse never needed to solve the problem of eating because its food hid under a log…canids did/do so there was an evolutionary advantage to a more clever animal.
You ever met a chicken? Trust me, if they didn’t have the massive advantage of mobility, the corn would win every time. But chickens can take comfort that dumb as they are, at least they’re not turkeys. A turkey is the only animal that can live its entire life from birth to death without ever having a single thought.
Just to state my own qualifications: I work on a horse boarding farm, we have about 40 head. Previously, I worked at another farm, with about 25. And in high school, I was a working student at a barn with about 30.
Some of the smartest horse behavior I’ve witnessed did seem to involve a projection of human behavior – for example this one horse, when not wishing to be caught, would herd another, very similar-looking horse towards the catcher, while using a larger horse for “cover.” Intelligence has been bred into some breeds of horses (Arabians, Morgans, and Appaloosas are thought to be among the smartest), and less so into others.
As I said, I can believe that the very smartest dogs are smarter than the smartest horses, but as a group they are mostly similar, though their intelligence may be of a different nature, with dogs’ more focused on problem-solving and horses’ more focused on memory.
I agree. Horses aren’t a hell of a lot smarter than the average rock. Having said that, I’m going to use the gunfighter’s seat, in a corner, back to two walls from now on.
I might take issue with some of this, Blake. Border Collies, especially the independent herders, have enormous capacity to learn to respond to commands and remember commands even though far distant in time and space from the person giving the commands. Some of the competitive trials I’ve attended have displayed most everything out of border collies except calculus and physics.
I have seen my lab bring me a rabbit (alive and fighting), a mockingbird (alive, fighting not-so-much), and several mice (none alive) while off-leash in an open back yard. It could be the retriever instincts, but it seemed to be more of a “here, I brought these for you” thing, given the look on her face and the tail wag when she dropped them off.
Not that I would have eaten any of those items, but she doesn’t know that.
The day she brings me a filet, medium rare with garlic mashed potatoes, I’ll be truly sure of her motives.
The facts out of the way, my speculation is that dogs have a very flat bell curve compared to cats. You see a whole lot of dogs that are dumber than corn, and you see a whole lot of dogs that are amazingly smart.
I agree all that comes into play when there are close calls. However, having been around horses and dogs all my life, I have to ask “Are you crazy?” Horses only look semi-smart because they tend to hand around things like cows and sheep all the time. Horses are STOOOOPID. Horses respond to conditioning better than some animals but they are no free thinkers and don’t seem to bond with humans in ways that dogs do. Dogs seem to have a rudimentary conscience and can do some pretty clever problem solving.
So what I say to THIS?! No way! Horses are intelligent so they are are not DEFENETLY not STOOOOPID. This person makes me ANGRY!:mad:
I recall Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon had a long-running friendly feud regarding which was smarter, a pig or a horse? I don’t think they ever resolved it.
I worked many years ago in a racing stable which housed well over 200 thoroughbred horses, and enjoyed observing equine behavior.
In all the time I worked there, I only observed one instance of what I would consider to be equine creative intelligence, and that involved one particular horse who had figured out how to undo the top bolt on the door of his box. He used his lips and his teeth. We had to put an additional padlock on that bolt to prevent him from doing his party trick.
The trainer, however, refused to acknowledge this as evidence of creative intelligence, and said it was just a habit the horse had gotten into… no intelligence involved.
I remember another instance of a horse taking a huge dump right into his water manger (drinking fountain) . That certainly wasn’t a smart thing to do.
In MANY cases (not all), when we “train” an animal, all we’re really doing is conditioning them to perform one of their natural, instinctive behaviors on cue.
To use one simple, crude example, you don’t have to teach a dog to sit- he KNOWS how, and does it all the time. You just teach him to do so on your command.
If we’re trying to judge an animal’s intelligence, it might be helpful to see what NON-natural behaviors each can learn.
One of my gf’s horses has gotten cast in his stall. Basically, that means he was laying down and got into a position where he couldn’t get back up. We had to remedy his situation, which wasn’t safe or simple.
I doubt that you could train a horse to do brain surgery. But I am fully confident that dolphins have an innate understanding of basic calculus and physics, and could easily be trained as rocket scientists.
People don’t think that border collies are smart because they are good herders, but because of other stuff they did. They have massive vocabularies, and the one we had could plan ahead (probably a good skill for herding) and could extend his training to other areas. We taught him to sit at corners - he used sitting to tell us he wanted to cross in the middle of the street to check stuff out.
We’ve had other dogs ranging from reasonably smart golden to dumb, dumb, dumb Labs.
We had a treat machine which the dog could get a treat from by hitting a bar with his paw. Our border collie figured it out in under ten seconds. The Lab never did, though the border collie tried to teach him.
We also had horses. Dumb, dumb, dumb. My daughter jumped them, and there is always the danger of the horse refusing a jump. I’ve never seen a dog refuse a jump.
I think we have to differentiate between barnyard turkeys and wild turkeys. Had a friend that hunted wild turkeys with a bow & arrow tell me they aren’t as stupid as some people think.
