[QUOTE=Eyebrows 0f Doom]
My dog used to do that exact same thing!! He would run to the back door & bark to be let out and when we would get up to unlock the door, he’d run back and jump right onto the chair we had been sitting on!
[/QUOTE]
Evil. Now that’s what equals intelligence. The ability to be truly evil and still get dog treats now and again. 
On poodles: There’s a reason that circuses use poodles. They’re really, really smart.
And trust me, the bigger ones are considerably more interesting than the yappy kind.
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
And that’s why I’d put beagles and basset hounds on the other list! They may not be terribly trainable, but they are not stupid.
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I don’t mean to single you out, but this is why a lot of people tend not to agree with this listings if intelligent breeds, even though they are very accurate, overall. The problem is that people always try to anthropomorphize (sp?) dogs.
If you knew a person who, no matter what, always did what another person told him to do based on a one to three world command, you would think he was dumb.
“Heh, look at Charlie…someone tells him to sit and he stays there until he gets a treat and is told to do something else…he’s a dumbass!”
But dogs and most other animals don’t think like that. They aren’t capable of complex reasoning. The smartest breeds ARE the ones that recognize and obey the simple commands. Your little pug or chow-chow isn’t ignoring you because he’s too smart to do what you want, he’signoring because he’s a freakin’ moron.
There’s a reason that most service dogs are from a limited selection of breeds. You’ll never see a shih-tzu as a guide dog, or a beagle doing police work. Labs, collies, goldens, German shepards, and sheep dogs are among the smartest breeds, and tery are the ones you see as guide dogs and service dogs. Poodles are really smart too, but are less popular because of their reputation as more of a show dog.
The bloodhound as a dumb dog surprised me, because they often do search and rescue types of things, but it’s pretty conceivable that they are bred to only do one thing (smell this and then FOLLOW THE SMELL!) and can’t do much else.
Corgis are usually smart, but every so often you find one like Scooter, Box of Rocks dog. You can tell how smart they are when they chase each other around and play-fight:
Elwood, the young male, starts shit by making sure Corky, the female, can see him and then hopping around and doing play-bows right in her field of vision. She, on the other hand, will look from you to him repeatedly, eyebrows bouncing like a pair of jumping beans. Eventually it’s too much and she attacks, barking like mad. Elwood is off like a shot and it’s on.
Scooter is roused to action by barking. He barks when someone else barks, when a kitty is scratching at the door, when there’s barking on TV, or when it’s been a while since he barked last. Scooter races with all his bulk woofing madly and runs into Corky, who was laying a trap for Elwood so she’d get him right as he rounded the couch. See, Elwood and Corky live in a world of feints and double-fakes and quick timing, whereas Scooter is about as subtle as a double semi with no brakes. Corky spends a good deal of her time getting Scooter away from her while Elwood escapes yet again. Corky stalks and waits, getting down and crawling like a commando to spring a trap, while Elwood is changing up the pattern and coming around on the other side of the sofa this time, and here comes Scooter barging in like a tidal wave, bowling over Corky while Elwood comes in and tags them both.
After seeing pictures of dear Tulip drinking from the pond when I first brought her home from the pound, I was amazed at how the collection and garden has suffered since she moved in. I put stakes around the beds and ran cheap twine between them, allowing access for goldfish gazing and sipping. I then declared these areas to be off limits by making rude noises whenever Tulip drossed the line. Total time of instruction, 1 afternoon.
Tulip is a Doberman, she’s rather bright until the adrenaline kicks in.
(She freaked me out by opening the sliding glass door the second day she was home, right after the vet’s drugs wore off)
[QUOTE=bouv]
The smartest breeds ARE the ones that recognize and obey the simple commands.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, goody! It’s not everyday I get to use “begging the question” in it’s proper sense. But you are. Begging the question, that is. You’re assuming the definition that’s the very thing we’re disagreeing with and using that to prove you’re right.
Ravens are about the smartest birds there are, because they’re fabulous problem solvers. Not terribly trainable, however.
The smartest humans are ones that can make intuitive leaps and connections between things that most of us can’t.
The smartest rabbits are the ones that don’t get caught by a predator.
The smartest computers are the ones that are really, really fast and can do lots of operations at once.
The smartest supermodel is the one who keeps her BMI at the lowest possible point without actually dying.
“Smart” can mean all sorts of things. You agree with the writers of that list that “smart” for a dog means trainability. That’s cool. I can see that as *one *rubric for intelligence. I think another definition of smart that can apply to dogs is the ability to do meaningful work *without *humans’ instructions. Another is the ability to successfully manipulate (or train) humans. I think another is the ability to recognize that most humans really don’t have an “or else” planned when they threaten their dog for chewing up the furniture, and to go ahead and do what they like despite our shrieking.
Yes, it was a lighthearted post clearly designed to anthropomorphize dogs, since this is a lighthearted thread. I do think, and I’ve always been clear in dog *training *threads, that one mustn’t fall into the trap of treating dogs like furry people. On the other hand, they’re not simple robots, either. Some of them do have some ability for forethought, as our barkers stealing the warm spot show. And they certainly have personalities, both as breeds and as individuals. (Personality = a consistent pattern of behavioral, temperamental and emotional traits.)
You’re right, we shouldn’t anthropomorphize them. But neither should we decaninize them.
[QUOTE=bouv]
There’s a reason that most service dogs are from a limited selection of breeds. You’ll never see a shih-tzu as a guide dog, or a beagle doing police work.
[/QUOTE]
Au contrare (or howeverdaheck you spell it)
As for the list… I’d bet that it was done by audience voting or some such. There’s no criteria listed, so it makes me suspicious.
There have been studies done recently that also show that pups who are consistently talked to when young amass a far broader vocabulary of words and commands, regardless of breed.
I agree that this article (which always seems to pop up once a year or so) is only testing a single rubrik. Many of the traditional tests of intelligence are not weighted in favor of independent breeds, nor those that have learned mitigating behavior. For example, one common test is to place a towel or blanket over the dog’s head and time how long it takes it to work it’s way out. I have a dog that builds “nests” out of blankets and dirty laundry and snuggles in them. It often takes her a long time to get out, because she doesn’t want to get out, she’s cozy.
My older corgi is very smart, but he spent a long time living as a stray before he was rescued, living by his wits, which taught him all kinds of skills. The younger spent her entire life as a puppy mill brood bitch, with no mental stimulation. When she was rescued, she seemed pretty stupid. She’s showing lots of signs of intelligence but it really needs to be brought out in her.
The older one is so docile that he will do absolutely nothing to escape from a towel over his head because he figures that if you want to put a towel over his head, there should be a towel over his head. He will sit there till you take it off. The younger one will play peek-a-boo, but she’s still not smarter than he is.
I demand more pictures.
My Boston terrorist also can tell time. (The cat can also do this.)
She gets meds twice a day. The meds are camouflaged in the form of a milk bone covered in peanut butter (so the pill sticks to the bone). If I’m late, forget, or get busy, she starts barking at me right around pill time and will not sit down, shut up, or give it up until she gets her pill. As soon as she gets her peanut butter, she settles right down. She knows when it’s time for her pill and she knows the word. If I say it, her little radar dish bat ears spring up to attention.
This morning, she let me sleep in until she couldn’t stand it anymore and HAD to go outside. She woke me by pulling the covers off me. I’d yank 'em back up, and she’d pull 'em off again. And then she put her nose two inches from mine and stared at me until I opened my eyes. “get up Get Up GET UUUUUPPPPP! I gotta peeeee…”
I’m quite she she’d whip the snot outta any poodle. 
Most dogs can tell time. They’re very good at it, actually.
As far as whipping the snot out of? Hmph. One paw. One paw, right between the shoulder blades.
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath]
Most dogs can tell time. They’re very good at it, actually.
As far as whipping the snot out of? Hmph. One paw. One paw, right between the shoulder blades.
[/QUOTE]
Pretty dog!
But there’s no way he could keep a BT pinned with a single paw. Now go away or I will taunt you a second time.
I dare ya, floofydog: http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn91/Dogzilla_02/bobo_mid_bark.jpg
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
You’re right, we shouldn’t anthropomorphize them. But neither should we decaninize them.
[/QUOTE]
To follow on this theme, I’ve seen a list somewhere of two very different kinds of intelligence. The first is based on trainability, the second is on what I believe was referred to as “adaptive intelligence”, or problem solving. Basenjis (we owned one) was ranked near the top of adaptive and toward the bottom of trainability.
Whether one is better than the other or what is useful to the situation, it seemed obvious this was true for our basenji.
We currently own a mixed breed chihauhua / some kind of rat terrier or JRT or somesuch. She’s dumb as a sack of hammers, neither terribly good at solving problems and only mildly trainable. But in her defense, she was struck by a car before we adopted her and I suspect she may have sustained some brain trauma in the accident.
I’ve never spent much time with a Golden before, but I’ve never heard anyone even claim they were intelligent. I thought the universal opinion was that they were friendly, lovable and stupid. (Just like every survey seems to agree that Border Collies are genuises for whatever reason.) I suppose Goldens wouldn’t be used as seeing-eye dogs if they were really that stupid.
Yes, I agree the degree of socialization and human interaction makes a world of difference. The BT I keep talking about I raised from a pup. My other BT was rescued from being a stud dog in a puppy mill. It took me about two years just to socialize him away from being a complete wreck. He had severe separation anxiety and was completely untrainable at first. (I had to put him on antidepressants. I am not making that up.) About another year later, he finally started to learn how to behave like a dog so I could finally teach him sit-stay, but that’s about as far as it goes. He’s still smart, but not quite the problem-solver and con-artist as my raised-from-pup dog. I call him the short bus dog. The poodle could definitely kick his ass. He’d just stare and look worried.
You call that floofy? You don’t know floofy.
Now, that’s floofy!
(He also opened doorknobs, watched TV (Favored: Nature shows with bears, soccer), discovered how to turn on TV, and was very good at hunting down family members when asked where they were.)
I think Goldens aren’t that stupid, they’re just… amiable. Not the independent thinking sort.
The Basenji is THE best dog on both lists because they can’t bark. Well, they can manage a pseudo-bark but STILL!
Unfortunately they love to chase things, and after 6 run ins with a car, mine finally lost.
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath]
Most dogs can tell time. They’re very good at it, actually.
As far as whipping the snot out of? Hmph. One paw. One paw, right between the shoulder blades.
[/QUOTE]
“That’s not a poodle, that’s a hellhound!” (Obligatory Return to Zork reference)
Basenjis may not bark, but they can make noise! I was once stuck in a car with one for a couple of minutes while his owner went inside to take care of something. He didn’t bark, but he sure whined and complained like a champ.
