Smart dogs, dumb dogs

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Years ago I had an airdale named Red. For the most part, he was one of the coolest dogs I have ever owned. Two things that come to mind that remind me that he was not the smartest dog around. First, he like to use the neighbors pasture as his toilet. I didn’t mind, it meant no dog poop to hit with the lawnmower. The pasture owner also had an electric fence to keep their cows and horses in. I don’t know how many times I would hear Red yelp and look out and see that he had just climbed through the barbed wire fence and hit the electric fence wire. Often he would hit it going in and coming out.

The second thing was his concept of water and and how it worked when it came to lakes or rivers. When I had Red, I also had another dog named Speedway, he was a German shepherd mix. I could take both dogs to a lake or river and both would make a mad dash for the water. Speedway would stop at the water’s edge then stroll into the water. Not Red. He would try to run on top of the water. Most of the time there would be a big splash and Red would crash face first into the water. If he saw ducks on a lake, he would try to swim after them. On a couple of occasions I had to ask folks with boats to go out and retrieve Red, he would try to swim across the lake if that what it would take to get to the ducks.

22

I’m pretty sure I posted this before.

Same deal with a smart Lab, knowing the name of various toys.

When he was about 2 years old, I started subscribing to the paper.

On the first Sunday, I took him to the front door, and showed him a rolled up stack of grocery store ads: “This is a NEWSPAPER.”

Dog’s expression/body language: “OK Dad, and your point would be what exactly?”

Me, pointing to driveway: “Over there is a NEWSPAPER”

Dog’s expression: “I’ll be damned if isn’t! Where’d that come from??”

Me:“Go get it, bring it here”

Dog’s body language: “COOL, Dad has a job for ME!”

He made a beeline for the paper, grabbed it, and brought it straight to me. He was as excited as I had ever seen him. A new trick, learned essentially only by having it verbally explained to him, and he obviously realized this was a breakthrough in Dad-dog communication.
So the next Sunday I took him to the door, Pointed at the paper:“NEWSPAPER! Bring it here!”

Dogs body language: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m so there! Just let go of my collar already!”

Dog charges forward, across the street, grabs the neighbor’s paper and brings it to me! “Am I a great dog, OR WHAT?”

23

I have another story about my minpin’s intelligence.

when the water bowl was empty, she’d scratch at it, where the water should be until I noticed the scratching noise and fill it up. I never taught her that, she just did it like wtf there’s no water inside, fill 'er up.

another dumb thing she did, not exactly dumb, but when she had pups, when one pup strayed away from their pen/bed, she’d whimper and cry because she had no idea how to rectify the situation of getting it back into the pen/bed. She never thought to pick the pup up with her mouth and put it back in, she just whined to get my attention so that I come pick the puppy up and keep it safe. The bed was in an upstairs room and the pup was heading towards the steep stairs leading down. I got there in enough time to avoid a disaster.

She also alerted me to something burning in the kitchen before my nose could pick up on the smoke. Pretty smart dog for something so small.

24

We can’t use walk in a sentence. We use perambulation.

25

At the same time we had the dog Duchess, we had a cat, colored much like Socks, two years older; named Archie. (His full name was Archibald, of course; we started calling the dog Duchibald.)
We usually looked at Archie as the smart one. Once, however, when we had pot roast for dinner, my Mom cut a small hunk off the roast and put iit on a saucer on the floor in the dining room. We called “kitty, kity, kitty” to bring Archie; he came and so did Duchess! (She came whatever we called.)
Archie went over to the hunk of pot roast on the saucer and looked at it, and sniffed at it, then stepped away. Duchess came over and gobbled it down. Archie was still present, and Mom said to him, “See, you didn’t get any, you big dumb!” He just looked at her as if to say, Why, whatever do you mean?
How do you like THAT?

26

Sadly, everyone believed Duchess and ate the poisoned pot roast. If only they’d heeded the cat!

27

Our old dog, Jack, once caught a bee in his mouth. Went badly for both creatures, but he was basically fine, if puffy. We let him back out about a half-hour later, and he caught another one. Brilliant.

28

My dog does this ninja dog thing - I would almost think she has a sense of humor and is playing a trick on me.

When we are out on the trail and no one else is there (like this morning when it is cold and rainy) I don’t leash her. She won’t go too far from me. She’ll run ahead or lag behind, but she has a radius that she won’t get too far out of. Still, I keep an eye on her in case she goes and I have to clean up. One day I didn’t hear her for a while, so I turned to see if she was doing her business. I did see her. I turned the other way and didn’t see her. I turned all the way around - 360 degrees - and didn’t see her. I called her name and she jumped out from behind me wagging her tail. Now when she does this (like this morning) it makes me laugh and she’ll jump out from behind wagging like crazy.

She also woke me up the other night in the middle of a bad dream. I might have been calling, out, I’m not sure, but suddenly she was on my chest licking my face.

29

One lovely Saturday morning my landlord Jack took his dog Ariel out back behind the townhouse. That is her general run around and play away from traffic area. Ariel prefers getting her exercise in front of the row of townhouses, which includes the parking lot. There are more people there, and since she is a friend to the world, more petting. Sometimes she sneaks around front when she’s not being watched closely.

Jack was chatting on his cellphone and apparently wasn’t watching closely.

The front doorbell rang. I opened the door and found on the step two Jehovah’s witnesses and a yellow dog looking at me with an expression that clearly said, “Please be cool and don’t embarrass me in front of my new friends.”

I figured Jack was around somewhere, so I took a pamphlet from the Jehovah’s witnesses and shut the door without spoiling Ariel’s party.

I crossed to the back of the house, and saw that Jack was still outside on the deck talking on the phone. I asked him if he was aware that his dog was now canvassing the neighborhood with the missionaries.

He said, “Oh really?”

I said, “Do you want me to fetch her?”

He said, “Yeah, maybe you’d better.”

I again opened the front door. The trio, two humans and the dog, had moved on to the next house over, where Ariel was no doubt hoping to converse (and perhaps convert) her furry buddy Memphis.

I called her and she returned home, looking only the teeniest bit guilty.

30

My smart dog…a mutt which I had as a teenager and named Nancy after a girl I had a crush on. She loved to go hunting and would freeze and look at birds, and would flush rabbits when I said “Go” Not special in and of itself, but I never taught her any of that. She was 1/2 terrier and 1/2 mutt, and weighted about 20 lbs. She would learn tricks like lay down in less than 5 repetitions and remember them. Great dog.

Then there was Chloe…a female black and tan hound. Utterly dumb, to the point of having to kept outside because she never got any of the normal housebreaking rules. Would barely know to come when called. And slobbered a lot, and bayed at strange smells at night.

31

He wasn’t stupid, Buster was just precocious. He was a mutt, but he had some poodle and spaniel somewhere in there. Most awesome dog in the world.

Once he ate an entire jar of Vaseline. We had to replace an entire house of carpet. There was just no cleaning it out.
Then he got into my mom’s diuretics. That took a trip to the vet ER. I wasn’t living at home so I don’t know how bad it was. I just know he survived. When my oldest was little he got onto a high shelf and ate every piece of candy in her Easter basket. Even the big eared bunny.

He also ate underwear crotches and …various items he found in the litter box or the bathroom wastebasket.

But he was so smart, really. And he loved me. When I was pregnant I’d wake up at night to find him resting his head on my growing belly. He’d look up into my eyes with something there. He loved my daughter before she was even born, and let her ride him like a horse, pull great chunks of his hair, and even share his dog food. She’d come toddling out of the kitchen, both cheeks full and an Alpo drool…Buster would be sitting by his bowl patiently.

Once when we took him to the vet he escaped the car and ran away. We spent two days driving around that neighborhood looking for him and put up signs offering rewards. When we got the call from the lady who found her, she told us he was sitting right under the sign, like he was inviting a ride from anyone interested. He knew what he was doing. He was damned smart, that boy.

32

House sitting for my sister a few years back, and caring for the dogs too. I get up off the couch and walk into the kitchen to grab a beer. The beagle has opened the child locked cabinet and his head in the dog food bag just chowing down.

I don’t say a word, I just stop an watch.

Howell eats his full, uses his paws to crimp the bag back down and then, this is impressive, closes the cabinet door. It’s the perfect crime!

33

We had a mutt, Jenny. Real sweet tempered but not much smarter than a houseplant.

You could throw a ball and she’d go chasing after it. Then when she got to it, she’d run on by it because she would have forgotten why she was running.

34

When I was 14 we got a dog named Taffy. His father was a cocker spaniel and his mother was a cockapoo (half cocker/half poodle). Taffy looked like a skinny cocker and was ridiculously cute.

We were inseparable. He was the most loyal dog ever in the history of mankind. Almost to extremes…he CRIED and wailed whenever we were apart. Days I was in school were torture for my parents.

He taught himself to play fetch. I was at my computer, and I heard him rummaging in my closet. After a bit, I heard him leave my room, which was odd as he could normally not function unless he was within six feet of me. My room was on the second floor, and after he left my room I heard a THUMP…THUMP…THUMP THUMP THUMP, followed by his collar jangling as he ran down the stairs…then back up. This noise scenario played out five more times before I finally got up to investigate. He had found a baseball in my closet and had taken it to the stairs and dropped it to play fetch with himself.

I took him outside with a tennis ball…and we played fetch. He didn’t have to be taught.

OMG, this dog was so smart. He could tell the difference between his “blue” ball and his “green” ball, either getting the tennis ball or raquet ball. After MAS*H was over at 10:30, I took him out for a walk (a walk was this dog’s REASON FOR EXISTENCE), and so whenever he heard the theme song at the end he started howling.

He constantly imitated me, including sleeping under the covers with his head on the pillow. (OMG, that is soooo gross…I would never have a dog in the house now let alone ON MY PILLOW IN MY BED).

If we hid a ball from him and told him to get it…he’d obviously find it, but pretend not to in order to make the game last longer.

If he was out of the house, I’d hide a ball somewhere. He’d find it right away…as soon as he came in the house, he’d know to look for it. It’s not like I did this regularly…the dog always knew where ANY ball was as soon as he came in a house, and if he knew it was in a new place…he’d go to it.

35

This thread really makes me wish I could get a dog.
Damn allergy. :frowning:

36

We do that! They haven’t caught on yet.

My dogs can hear me thinking about making chicken.

37

My late, lamented Rott/Lab mix Bitz the Wondermutt was the smartest dog I’d ever met. That is, until we got the next big dog, Maladroit the Mixed Mastiff. She’s half cane corso and half bullmastiff and is so smart she scares me.

I have dozens of stories, but I’ll keep it to just one. A few months ago we had a major trim job done on our mesquite tree. The tree service took most of the stuff away, but of course there were hundreds of twigs and sticks. I was having a dinner party the next week and thought I’d dry them and use them to roast green onions to serve with romesco sauce as an appetizer.

I was outside with a big bucket and of course Mala had to come along with me. I was bending down, picking up sticks where I found them and dropping them in the bucket. A couple minutes after I started, Mala walked down to the opposite end of the side yard, picked up a stick in her mouth, brought it to me and dropped it at my feet. I thought it was cute but didn’t think she was actually trying to help me. Until she did it again. And again. And again. After the fourth or fifth time I started showing her to drop them in the bucket. It took two tries but every other stick made it in after that. A couple of times she missed, picked the stick back up and put it in correctly.

Why yes, she did get extra treats that night. Why do you ask? Always pay and tip your workers, folks.

38

Our English Bulldog does this. It’s hilarious. You absolutely have to stand on the patio and watch her when it’s raining or she’ll pull the fake pee trick no matter how badly she actually has to go.

39

Bitz, mentioned above, was the most adaptive dog I’ve ever known. When she was younger she worked out different strategies to hunt and kill different types of birds. Blackbirds required a running leap. Doves and pigeons she would low crawl up behind, get into position and BARK once to startle them. When they took off, she’d jump from her crouch and nail them more often then not, shake them to death and then leave them without a mark on them other than some slobber. If I were outside with her when she made a kill she’d happily trot over and drop the corpse at my feet. Please note, she was never trained as a bird or hunting dog.

That’s what makes the next story get my chest tight and my eyes wet every time. About three years before she died she hurt her left rear leg pretty badly. It healed okay, but her running and leaping days were over forever.

There was a little community green spot, about the size of two house lots, across the street from our house. We’d take the dogs over and let them wander around off-leash but keep a close eye on them. One day Bitz heard or scented something. She started marching, nose to the ground, toward one of the bushes on the other side of the park. She got about 10 feet from a bush and executed a textbook point. Front leg cocked, tail straight out behind her and stock still. I looked in the bush and there were a few quail hanging out in the shade.

It was like she was saying, “I can’t catch 'em anymore, Dad, but if you want to take them yourself, they’re right there.”

When she died I felt like I lost my shadow. Still do in some ways.

40

Our Bulldog Sydney has this plush pink octopus, named, creatively enough, Octopus. She’s had one of these since puppyhood. She’ll carry it around proudly then go onto her dog bed and suckle it’s head while she drifts off for a nap.

It’s the only thing she “owns.” When people come over for dinner she’ll take it either to her bed or into the middle of the living room, hump it vigorously so everyone knows it’s hers and then go lie down with it.

She’s never aggressive. You can take it away from her without any problems, but she’ll follow you around worried and concerned until you give it back. She will then hump the hell out of it to remind Octopus who it belongs to.

Mala is crazy for squeaky toys and simply must rip them apart to get the squeaker out. When we first got her, Sydney made Octopus squeak and Mala was all excited. Syd jumped up, put herself between Mala and Octopus and barked her fool head off until Mala left the room.

Many times Mala will want to wrestle but Syd won’t be interested. Mala very quickly figured out that if she went and stole Octopus from wherever it was laying, Sydney would come running to try to kick her ass. It’s all play wrestling, but Syd really tries to put the smackdown on her. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a 95 pound cane corso mix struggling to keep up in a wrestling match with a 45 pound English Bulldog that’s a foot shorter than she is.