Just wondering! If we assume that intelligence (in dogs) is similar to in humans, then I don’t see why there hasn’t been a dog with the intelligence level of an adult human. Consider this…humans vary in IQ score from 30 to 185(a super genius level). So, with 60 million dogs in this country, shouldn’t there be at least one canine genius? A friend (who is a K-9 corp policeman) tells me that the german shepherd dos in the K-9 police unit are about as intelligent as a human 3-4 year old child. If we assume that a dog might be 2-3 times asintelligent as this, then might there be a dog with human-level intelligence?
Suppose there is a canine “Einstein” out there…what wouldhe have to say to us?
???
My dog didn’t do very well on the written test I gave him. I think it must be culturally biased towards white dogs.
“Woof!”, sez mine. How’d he think of that?
If we assume that Tree Sloths can dance as well as people, surely one of them is Ginger Rogers.
Dogs being dogs you’d probably get a beautifully reasoned treatise on why you should feed him steak.
Yes. Check out Jim the Wonder Dog:
http://www.jimthewonderdog.com/
http://www.john-bauer.com/jim.htm
maybe they are all ready smarter than us. free food, shelter, massage (petting), ect. who has the better arangment you or your dog?
And if we assume beauty (in dogs) is similar to in humans, then somewhere in the world there might be a dog you’d like to marry…
Your friend is either very very wrong, or has in his possession the only dog I’ve ever heard of that can speak in full sentences.
Brains are not general computation devices. Intelligence in humans is not the same as intelligence in dogs any more than hands in humans are the same as claws on lobsters.
My dog didn’t do very well on the written portion of the SATs either. Looks like Brown for Rover.
Guy walks into a bar with his dog. Tells the bartender that for a free drink, he’ll have the dog talk. Bartender says ‘sure, it’s a slow day, what the hell’.
Guy: “Rover, what’s on top of a house?”
Rover: “Roof!”
Guy: “Good dog!”
Bartender: “Okay, ya got me.”
Guy: “No, really, he can talk. One more drink to prove it.”
Bartender: “Sure, why not…”
Guy: “Rover, how does sandpaper feel?”
Rover: “Ruff!”
Bartender throws them both out on the street.
Guy: “Man, what was his problem?”
Rover: “Beats me. Let’s try that place across the street.”
That’s a very big assumption. Canine smarts are nothing like human smarts. The two species are each intelligent in different ways. Dogs are good at identifying smells, tracking by scent, and picking up on the subtle cues of their masters. A smart dog=a good smeller.
Comparing a well-trained police dog to a preschooler is like comparing apples and oranges. Their roles are not interchangable. A bright dog is capable of understanding many human words-- your typical 3- or 4-year-old can understand far more. At the same time, no child could pick out a bomb by scent, and most aren’t as obedient as a well-trained dog. Preschoolers can identify letters, numbers, and symbols. Sometimes they can even read. There is no evidence of fledgling canine literacy. Well, except for Jim the Wonder Dog, but my bet is that when Jim identified pieces of paper with writing, his eyes weren’t on the writing. Jim was scanning any humans present for cues.
This one is a contender.
Let me rephrase your original statement first,
“Surely there are some garden slugs that are ten times as smart as the average garden slug.”
See the problem? Nobody really knows how to find such a garden slug or how to measure “average”.
And so it is with dogs. Dogs sit around, eat, and chase cars. Sure, this one here may be super intelligent, for a dog. But, since all he does is sit, eat, and chase, how can anyone really know?
I’ve owned 5 dogs now. One of them, I believe, was super intelligent. I can’t test it or prove it. All I can do is tell stories.
I like this ending better… add this in after the “Ruff!”
Guy: “One more. This will convince you.”
Bartender: “OK, last chance…”
Guy: “Who’s the greatest baseball player of all time?”
Dog: “Ruth!”
Bartender throws them both out on the street.
Rover: “Damn, I should have said Gherig.”
I don’t know about “far more”… My old dog Bear probably understood thousands of words. On the other hand, most of those words were synonyms for “walk”, so it’s not necessarily comparable.
That thought didn’t escape those who observed what he did. It also doesn’t seem to even begin to explain some of his feats. For example:
From here: http://www.john-bauer.com/jim.htm
“Then someone in the crowd spoke a few words in French. Van Arsdale looked puzzled since he did not understand the language. Not so, Jim. He slipped through the crowd to its outer fringe and began nudging an interested spectator. It was our Methodist minister. Van Arsdale turned to the questioner.“What did you say to Jim?” he asked. “I asked if there was a Bible in the crowd,” replied the French-speaking spectator. The pastor had a quizzical look on his face as he reached into an inside coat pocket and produced a small Testament.”
And from here: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/pet/jim.html
“Jim and Sam soon found themselves hauled before a combined session of the state legislature in Jefferson City, where a test had been devised to debunk the dog. In order to preclude any secret signaling, a Morse code message was tapped out (Sam didn’t understand Morse code) instructing Jim to walk to a certain member. Jim did it. The senators and representatives sat dumbfounded as Jim then picked out people with various traits, including the gentleman “ladies speak of as tall and handsome” and the politician that was playing cards instead of paying attention.”
And from here: http://www.arockinmyshoe.com/wonderdog.html
“At a Chamber of Commerce meeting in Sikeston, Missouri, Sam asked his dog to find a man wearing a r-e-d-s-w-e-a-t-e-r. Jim circled the large gathering of men, finally stopping in front of a man wearing a hunting coat. The chorus of “ahas” gave way to loud cheers as the gentleman unbuttoned his coat to reveal a red sweater!”
That’s just a sample. Google on “Jim the wonder dog” for more.
Your tax dollars at work, Missouri!
Dogs are thought to be colour blind due to the lack of “cone” cells in their eyes. I’ve personally always hated the smell of the colour red.
Recent studies indicate that dogs have evolved a keen ability to pick up on human gestures. Now Jim may have been specially trained, many of these could be some sort of parlor trick, etc. But if there were such a thing as a “dog genius”, the abilities that would probably seperate him from the pack would probably be in that area. So Jim may indeed have been a genius dog who was much better at understanding human cues than other dogs. If you judged him against human intelligence, he’d still be less intelligent than your average two year old. (Of course, if we judged Einstein in terms of dog intelligence, he’d probably score lower than a 6 week old puppy.)
Dr_Paprika, are you really synesthetic?
To be fair, I think the OP meant to make an assumption about dogs having the same vatiation of intelligence as humans. Not that they were as intelligent. If some dogs are smarter than other dogs then there must be an upper level of canine intelligence.
I think this question might be mor intriguing with chimpanzees, though, who are already much closer to human intelligence than dogs. Could there be a “genius” chimp who had a cognitive ability approaching human levels? How would the Stephen Hawking of chimps stack up against the average human?