I have four dogs. Two of them are so dumb that their IQs may actually be negative.
Molly, for example, gets gas. And every time she lets out a little fart, it scares her and she gets up and runs away. (Closer to me, naturally.) This goes on for days sometimes. I’m sure she thinks she is being haunted by a ghost that, instead of “Boo!”, says “Fffrt!”.
Buttons (this is the seriously dumb one) will occasionally run away. When she does, I take her leash, stand on the step brandishing it, and call, “Buttons! Wanna go outsiiiide?” and she comes running. Now that is dumb.
Anyone else, or do I have the dumbest doggies around?
~karol
When I was a kid, my dad came home with an Irish Setter. It must have been inbred or something, as it looked purebred, but someone just gave it away to my dad.This dog was so damn stupid that whenever it would try to run anywhere it would trip over its own feet. This dog used to slobber all over the house too. But the stupidest thing this damn dog ever did was this. One Easter, our family had gotten one of those solid chocolate baskets full of chocolate goodies. We set it in the middle of the table overnight. Well, this damn Irish Setter pulled on the tablecloth until the chocolate basket fell on the floor. He ate it, and shit all over the house. Not a solid shit, but diariagh(sp). When my dad woke up and saw this, he beat that dog from one corner of the house to the next. Soon after that, we got rid of him.
I’m sorry, I’m a graduate of the government school system. You have to bear with me, as I was just passed along from grade to grade. By the way, I’m half drunk right now, and just laughing my ass off!
The best dog I ever had was a stray called Tramp, who like all respectable mongrels was an utterly incomprehensible mixture of every dog imaginable. His face was just a mixture, his tail frizzy, his hind legs far longer than his front ones, his ears alternately floppy and pricked up. When he moved in with us he quickly noticed that the other dogs sat up and begged to get food, and he joined in. He just didn’t have the butt-structure to acommodate the move, though, and rolled gracefully backwards every single time. He never learned not to. To be honest I think he thought he was supposed to fall over.
I wish I had a funny incident to relate, but it’s just a general thing. He’s just dumb. Plus, being a basset hound, he looks depressed all the time.
He’s a lah-di-dah pedigreed dog (would have been a show dog but his front legs were too close in). Another breeder whose dogs are from this line agrees that the males in this family seem to be pretty dim bulbs.
Her champion stud has gotten stuck behind the bed trying to go after a treat. Stuff like that.
I know of another basset hound who will fetch his own ear. He runs off, comes back with the end of his own ear in his mouth.
Our other dog, an English bull, isn’t exactly dumb, but he just farts at the wrong time. Really LOUD, super stinky farts. He won’t fart for a month, then company comes over and…Blathhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhp!
You’re banned and you’re still posting—that seems a clever trick.
My Bon-bon, a border collie, was so dumb, she would jump up onto things without seeing if there was room. Or a landing surface. It wasn’t uncommon to hear an “Arp!” and then whining. I’d go outside and look in the big woodbox by the kitchen backdoor. She’d be tangled in the firewood. Again. She’d try to jump onto the box to peek in the windows while the box was open; if the wood pile was low, she’d just jump out, but sometimes it would shift on her.
She dies chasing cars. She got out and got hit, had to hike a ways to find a car to challenge and 700 bucks later, the vet said “At least she’ll never do it again.” We gave her to my SIL to be a housedog, but she got out and lost the doggie VS pickup confrontation. What did she plan to do with that truck when she caught it? Eat it?
Cyn: a dumb border collie? First one I’ve ever heard of.
Our Golden Retriever cross, Milo, is dumb as a post. He frequently gets stuck under or behind the couch (his favorite denning spot). He’s actually moved the couch several feet across the living room floor trying to get out.
Also, he’s constantly tripping over things. I mean, really. Who ever heard of a quadruped tripping? They’ve got FOUR FEET, for cryin’ out loud! Shouldn’t a couple of the non-tripping feet pick up the slack? Nevertheless, he’ll trip over the lamp, or a log, or his own feet, and WUMP! Down he’ll go. He always looks very confused for a second, which is, of course, how long it takes him to forget everything that’s ever happened to him since he was born. Then that placid Golden grin comes back on his face and he’s off again. God, I love that dog.
Our other dog, Katie, a generic herder mix (Australian Shepherd/Blue Heeler/Border Collie), suffers from no such handicap, although she did do one memorably stupid thing that I still laugh about, two years later. We went for a hike in the mountains, to a small lake. When we got to the lake, we noticed that the bank dropped off rather precipitately; the surface of the water was about 3 feet below the ground, and there was no sloping bank. It just dropped straight down. Well, Katie went over to the bank and found–A DEAD FISH! Oh joy! Oh rapture! She proceeded to get down and roll all over it, covering herself with a truly horrific slime with an even worse odor. We were just bemoaning this turn of events when SPLASH! Katie got so worked up rolling on the dead fish that she rolled right into the lake. We were convulsed by laughter for a good five minutes, and chuckled about it intermittently all the way back to the car (a good 2 hours). Hee hee. Dogs…you gotta love 'em.
My dog, a German Shepherd, used to wake herself up while laying on the couch next to me with some of that fart action & run away, too. I thought that made her smart, though… P U!!!
We had German Shepherds when I was a kid, and if any of them did anything dumb, either I don’t remember or I wasn’t told about it. But anyway…my SO has 2 dogs, an Alaskan Malamute who understands human conversation (not to mention a love of arguing – tell her something she doesn’t want to hear and she’ll “woo” at you for the next hour really loud), and a small mutt whose brindle coat and perky ears evidently remind some people of a jackal. Her name is Ember, and she’s my baby, no matter what
Intelligence isn’t one of her strong points, though. She must have some kind of attention-deficit disorder because not only do you have to get her attention, you have to tell her at least 5 times to do something before she does it. What she does is another story. My SO will tell her “sit”, and she’ll lie down. Tell her to lie down and she’ll jump up and lick your face. She loves to wrap her leash around your legs when you attempt to walk her. She also burps, farts, and growls at her toys if they don’t “obey” her!
One time my SO placed those Pepperidge Farm goldfish around the coffee table for Ember to find. She only ate the ones that appeared at her feet – we had to point out all the ones she didn’t eat, and she still didn’t get it!
Otherwise she’s a normal border collie, runs like a greyhound all hours of the night and day, and the only time she’s quiet is when she’s standing in my chair herding fish.
Probably just the only outlet for her natural herding instincts.
b.
One of my rabbits does this. I know, she’s not a dog, but she is stupid. My real dog is thousands of miles away in Canada right now and is actually pretty bright. When she was a puppy she would steal candy from the candy dish and then, I guess because she saw us do it, put the lid back on the dish. It took us a long time to figure out who was leaving wrappers all over the floor.
I live with two smart dogs and one really dumb dog. Rocky is actually my BF’s dog but we all live together now, like a canine Brady Bunch. Rocky is obsessed with snapping at and catching bugs. The dumb part comes in the winter when there are no bugs around; poor Rocky sees bugs that aren’t there. He will stare at a lamp for hours, waiting for a bug to snap at. His favorite place to lay is where he can see my computer monitor, he will stare at the monitor for hours. If there is a bug in the house, like a fly, I grab a newspaper and swat at it. Every time I hit something with the paper, Rocky will come running, snapping away. He snaps so hard and so often that he starts drooling.
Awww. These stories are so cute! Thanks for sharing. I don’t think Shnookums has done anything dumb, but oh the stories she could tell about the idiotic things her owners have done.
