Where’s the video?
http://www.thetoptens.com/smartest-animals/
according to the web site they think dogs are smarter.
Most of what people here are terming as ‘smarter’ is just ‘doing it like humans would’. Which usually isn’t particularly relevant to that other species.
In general, predator species are ‘smarter’ than prey species. As people have said, horses or cows don’t have to be smart to catch a field of grass; while cats after mice or dogs after rabbits do benefit from being smarter.
Also, predators that operate in packs seem to humans to be ‘smarter’ than others. Thus dogs are seen as smarter than cats. When in a pack, cooperation, following directions, having a hierarchy, and developing communication signals among the pack are all beneficial traits. And we humans see them as ‘smarter’. (Probably because we are a predator species, that operates in packs. So what’s most like us is ‘smarter’.)
Also, the horse (species Eqqus) has existed for about 125 million years; species Homo (humans) only for about 2.5 million years – so which is smarter?
Really? :rolleyes:
So you didn’t even to bother to read my post that you quoted, and made a nonsensiscal and provably wrong statement in GQ.
And this despite 9 years lead time.
Bravo sir, bravo.
I meant people in general. The articles I’ve read about border collie intelligence have been along the lines of identifying their vocabulary.
Now, they are such good herders because they got bred for it, and I suspect that this also has resulted in greater intelligence, since a dog needs to be smarter to anticipate and head off the actions of a flock of sheep than to go out and retrieve a dead duck. But most people, around here at least, who say how smart their border collies are have not been anywhere near sheep.
Dogs are much smarter than horses. I’ve had dogs and cats pretty much my whole life, and we had horses for 20 years. Horses will literally eat themselves to death, eating so much grain that they founder. If they recover, they will repeat the process, given the opportunity. Horses are just barely ahead of chickens. And I’ve got 35 chickens right now.
I have seen more than one rider get off his horse, secure the reins and point to a particular steer and walk out of the pen and the horse cuts that cow out and runs it through the gate.
Now I don’t think that just any horse can be taught this at near the % that Border Collies can be taught to do that to sheep but to claim that horses are totally turkey or chicken stupid has been around all the wrong horses. IMO
Been around horses that were plain killers. Same with some dogs. Been around a lot of stupid, mostly humans …
I have seen horses do amazing things to protect children. Things they were not trained to do now had they been around kids in general. Some dogs like babies and/or kids but not always both.
We are talking animals here, blanket statements are no more correct here than they are when talking about humans.
I also know many people who are much lower on the smarts scale than a lot of animals IMO. Bawahahahaha
Then how come I’ve heard so many stories about how a horse figured out how to undo a latch or a gate and get out of there stalls?
Then why did you quote me, since I was clearly not talking about people in general and was quite clearly addressing one person specifically?
http://vid681.photobucket.com/albums/vv174/kayaker01/Kali.mpeg_zpswzgogrw4.mp4
One of Kali’s tricks.
ETA: ? Plays on my tablet, but not my laptop.
The dog taught them, and it was a laborious process.
I would generally agree with you on this list. Note the two birds at the bottom after corn. There are exceptions in the bird world though, the crow or raven being one. I once watched a crow try to eat an English walnut. He couldn’t crack it with his beak so he took it in his mouth and flew to maybe 50-75’ above a small patch of asphalt in a sea of dirt and dropped it. It took 2 tries before it cracked enough to eat. This type of intelligence seems to be on the ape level.
Horses will only “eat themselves to death” if they are offered unlimited access to concentrates (grain). For a human to offer a horse unlimited access to concentrates is rather stupid on the human’s part. because eating an unlimited amount is natural behavior when horses eat what horses should eat: forage.
This is basically not a good example of nonintelligence. Without human-like language and writing to inform you, how would you know that you can kill yourself with alcohol? You wouldn’t, of course, the danger isn’t apparent from drinking a typical serving.
Horses definitely have intelligence which is quite different from dog intelligence, and they can run the gamut from stupid-for-a-horse to smart-for-a-horse. We had a porky horse that was on a diet and had a grazing muzzle, which is basically a nylon shield that velcros over the halter. He would lay down next to the fence, stick his head under, and the minidonk on the other side of the fence would pull off the velcro with his teeth. If that ain’t smart I don’t know what is.
People are doing research now with crow intelligence. Case study the first: crows can learn to use “vending machines”.
Case study number two: Caldedonian crows in the wild documented making tools (hook shaped twigs)
They’ve also been observed playing with toys.
While there are certainly some smart horses, and horses in general are smart enough for a typical horse lifestyle (either in the wild or under human care), horses don’t really need a whole lot of smarts to manage their lives. Their food pretty much stays put. They have an over-the-top startle reflex but that’s actually an asset in a prey animal. Given that they roam in the wild having a good memory for food and water locations is probably an asset, and horses in general do have good memories in my limited experience and casual research. That’s why they’re so darn trainable. They also have an ability to trust bald apes, basically letting the human in a partnership doing the heavy thinking, which is why they’re such useful domestic animals. Is that a smart thing or not?
On the other hand, dogs are predators. In the wild they have to hunt, chase/ambush, and kill their prey. Taking on large prey means working effectively in groups and coordinating efforts. That means a different sort of communication at a minimum, and probably more problem-solving smarts. Horses don’t do as much problem-solving, they don’t need that sort of smarts though having them in the rare horse genius isn’t a detriment.
If you define intelligence as “the ability to solve problems” (which is often what such definitions come down to) then dogs are smarter than horses in general (you always get outliers). If you’re looking at memory, though, horses might do better than dogs.
Steven Jay Gould made a pretty persuasive (IMO) argument that odd-toed ungulates - horses, donkeys, etc. - were essentially an evolutionary dead end, especially compared to even-toed - cows, buffalo, sheep, goats, antelope… Been a while since I read the essay, but IIRC he suggests they retain their perceived primacy due to human attraction for and reliance upon them, and the human desire to “tell a linear/directional story” - dog sized eopphipus (sp?) “improving” through evolution into the majestic horse.
Having said that, I like the statement above, that they are pretty much as smart as a horse needs to be.
Never mid horses- MOST animals will overeat if the opportunity presents itself. And in the wild, that’s not a bad idea: eat up while there’s plenty of food, because an overabundance of food is rare in nature, and doesn’t last long when it occurs.
You don’t see obese wild stallions, do you? Oh, wild stallions will eat as much grass as they can, but sooner or later, the food in one district will run out, and they’ll have to mosey along someplace in search of more. They may go hungry quite a while before they find it.
For most animals, “Pig out when you get the chance, because food is hard to come by” makes sense.
It’s an instinctive behavior – horse herds have a leader (‘alpha mare’) who does much of the thinking & deciding for the herd – when to go to the creek to drink water, when to move on to greener pastures, when to panic & stampede away, etc. So when domesticated, the human just steps into the hierarchy, above the alpha mare. They are such trainable animals because since birth they have been trained to follow the leader of the herd.
I’ve never owned a horse, and have only spent minimal time with them. But I can talk about the poodles I’ve owned. The smartest of them figured out how to open our back door by herself, and had the unfortunate desire to let her neighborhood friends into the house to play (back then, a lot of neighbors used to let their dogs run free). I remember coming home one day to a house filled with dogs, and my poodle sitting contentedly on my mom’s bed, surrounded by all of her friends.
She also was a genius when it came to untangling her leash – all of the other dogs we’ve owned had the habit that if you let them out on the leash, within 10 minutes, that leash would be wound about every single obstacle in the back yard – porch supports, staircase, etc. She was the only one who figured out that she could follow the leash back around the obstacles in order to untangle herself. It may not say a lot about the other poodles I’ve owned, but she was certainly a stand-out in the intelligence department. She also figured out (unfortunately) how to remove her own collar to run away, and a few other tricks that got her into trouble. She was too smart for her own good.
I’ve had other dogs that have TRIED to open doors by grabbing the nob, but never quite managed it, possibly because of their size.
Ah, poodles.
My childhood poodle was a near-genius at manipulation. Not manipulating the environment, manipulating the family. But only a near-genius.
She was an indoor dog. A toy poodle, so not really very sturdy. We’d put her outside sometimes, and she’d enjoy that OK for a while, but ask to be let back in on her own schedule.
One winter early in her life, she was on the back porch with the doormat pushed up into a windbreak. She squeaked her cute “poor little me” whine and shivered.
Of course, we let her in. She’s cold! Just look at her! She even made her own little shelter! How smart!
That was her schtick the rest of that winter, and every winter after.
Turns out, it was also her schtick in the summer. She’d push the doormat into a windbreak (not a shade; there were plenty of times where she didn’t get under it enough for that). She’d whine and squeak. And she’d shiver. Not out of fear; just because she learned that’s what worked.
“Peanuts… you’re faking that. It’s 98 degrees out here.” :rolleyes:
“<squeak><shiver><pitiful puppy dog eyes>”
“Sigh.” <let her in> :smack:
ETA: Let me put it to you: would a horse be smart enough to fake being cold? I think not.