Is my dog clever or normal?
Discussion
Had our Husky now for about 3 years.We bought her a new ball,it was called a 'Spaceball' so when it was amongst a huge pile of other balls,toys etc we asked her to go get the spaceball,she dug away pushing back all the wrong objects and came to me with the space ball?
So this made me think i'll test her,we got a lite padded toy,a little round guy with dungarees on,we called it eddie.
So when i firsy introduce her to 'Eddie' i repeated the name over and over a few times,then tested her by placing Eddie in amongst the huge pile of toys,same again,i'm saying where's Eddie,where's Eddie and sure enough,all the toys get thrown out the way and she brings me Eddie!
I've been doing this the last few days and i've built up to knowing 5 seperate toys,is this normal or is she quiet bright?Here she is with new friend Eddie
So this made me think i'll test her,we got a lite padded toy,a little round guy with dungarees on,we called it eddie.
So when i firsy introduce her to 'Eddie' i repeated the name over and over a few times,then tested her by placing Eddie in amongst the huge pile of toys,same again,i'm saying where's Eddie,where's Eddie and sure enough,all the toys get thrown out the way and she brings me Eddie!
I've been doing this the last few days and i've built up to knowing 5 seperate toys,is this normal or is she quiet bright?Here she is with new friend Eddie
I assume you can call out any of the five toys at random, not just the last one that you added to the pile?
Does she still get it right if you put 'Eddie' in the pile, but then ask for the ball instead?
And what if she doesn't see you putting the toy into the pile? If you do it while she's out of the room, then bring her in and ask for one of the toys (not the last one you added, otherwise she may just be picking the one that's got your scent on it most strongly).
And to eliminate the scent issue, what if you don't touch any of the toys for 24 hours, then ask for a random toy?
Does she still get it right if you put 'Eddie' in the pile, but then ask for the ball instead?
And what if she doesn't see you putting the toy into the pile? If you do it while she's out of the room, then bring her in and ask for one of the toys (not the last one you added, otherwise she may just be picking the one that's got your scent on it most strongly).
And to eliminate the scent issue, what if you don't touch any of the toys for 24 hours, then ask for a random toy?
Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Friday 5th August 07:09
My old Cocker b
h, now since departed, use to be able to pick a pebble off the beach that I had picked up and thrown. I'd make sure I'd clock one with a recognisable pattern or marking, I'd throw it say 20m and she'd find it amongst the millions of others, always amazed me.
Certainly puts the Crufts find the hankie the owner had touched amongst the 5 other hankie retrieve test into perspective.....
h, now since departed, use to be able to pick a pebble off the beach that I had picked up and thrown. I'd make sure I'd clock one with a recognisable pattern or marking, I'd throw it say 20m and she'd find it amongst the millions of others, always amazed me. Certainly puts the Crufts find the hankie the owner had touched amongst the 5 other hankie retrieve test into perspective.....
Boosted LS1 said:
Collies can clock up 30 objects or more but that's with training. Your dogs bright though. Why not train her, it would be fun :-)
There is a border collie in the Carolinas (iirc) that has learned over 1000 words.However, that isn't the real achievement of this particular dog.
Given 4 toys, it knows the name of 3 of them, the dog is able to deduce what the name of the unknown toy is. Which is very interesting because it means the dog is the only animal on the planet that can do that. (Chimps, parrots, dolphins etc, cannot do this).
We have an American Bulldog, so far he knows the names of about 10 toys, and knows his left and right. And when he gets his left wrong he also knows the command "your other left", which is really odd.
Edited by rc01082 on Friday 5th August 08:39
SHutchinson said:
My girlfriends cousins Lab does this too. It has a massive box of toys and can be sent to go and fetch a particular toy, it'll empty the box looking for the right one. Quite impressive to watch. Dogs are cool.
With training you can teach (some of) them to do all sorts of things.Our latest trick is to get the bulldog to put his toys back in the box. It's probably easier for us to do it frankly, but we point at a toy give him the command, and he puts it back in his box. Not sure he wants to though as he has laid them across the living room for everyone to trip over.
I'm away for a few weeks, but I'm told that my wife has trained him to wipe his feet before he comes inside.
All it takes is a bunch of treats, a wife with OCD, and a dog that can be trained.
Now our other dog, a Minpin Chihuahua hybrid; dumb as a rock. Although still much brighter than the cats which really are "speshul".
Dr Mike Oxgreen said:
I assume you can call out any of the five toys at random, not just the last one that you added to the pile?
Does she still get it right if you put 'Eddie' in the pile, but then ask for the ball instead?
And what if she doesn't see you putting the toy into the pile? If you do it while she's out of the room, then bring her in and ask for one of the toys (not the last one you added, otherwise she may just be picking the one that's got your scent on it most strongly).
And to eliminate the scent issue, what if you don't touch any of the toys for 24 hours, then ask for a random toy?
Yes i've deliberately mixed things up,asking for the spaceball twice in a row etc,back to Eddie,then 'ball' which is just her football etc.Does she still get it right if you put 'Eddie' in the pile, but then ask for the ball instead?
And what if she doesn't see you putting the toy into the pile? If you do it while she's out of the room, then bring her in and ask for one of the toys (not the last one you added, otherwise she may just be picking the one that's got your scent on it most strongly).
And to eliminate the scent issue, what if you don't touch any of the toys for 24 hours, then ask for a random toy?
Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Friday 5th August 07:09
I have to be honest it did start to get a bit difficult at 5,but if i just started releating the name more of each object when i was getting her to know a particular object,she would learn it.
It's the way she pushes all the wrong toys out the way with her snout,like yep its not that one,its not that one...then she retrieves item correctly,she seems to really enjoy it.
The thing that made me start doing this was when i had a cockatiel it was 'really' sharp at picking up things,it would tilt its head like it was all sinking in (like my dog done)and a couple of days later a whole phrase or long tune would come out i was teaching it a few phrases at a time.
I'll try messing about with scents to see what happens though.
Edited by robbocop33 on Friday 5th August 10:46
I'd say that your dog is pretty switched on. Some dogs can pick a few commands up, some follow patterns and some are just way smarter than we give them credit for.
We have a male Dobermann who is exceptionally intelligent. We've used him for sport, so he was the right dog to start with, but his intellect is off the chart. We've done loads of slightly pointless but fun training with him, like placing two objects 10 feet apart and use a command (and clicker with treat) and saying 'Box', carpet or whatever we've got him to stand on. We then encourage him to stand on the other object and within 4 or 5 goes, you can just use the command and he'll go sit on a box or square of carpet as he knows what each command / sound means. When we have visitors, they are normally quite amused about the various places we can ask him to sit.
Where his intellect really shows is when he's a step ahead of you and self-corrects. If he's been told to walk to heel or lay down and he's eager for the next command and not in the right position or fully flat to the ground, you can just eye-ball him and give the disappointed look and he'll nudge up closer to you, lay flatter etc. He knows he's not doing it right and you don't need to tell him, just give him 'the look' and he'll put it right.
We have a male Dobermann who is exceptionally intelligent. We've used him for sport, so he was the right dog to start with, but his intellect is off the chart. We've done loads of slightly pointless but fun training with him, like placing two objects 10 feet apart and use a command (and clicker with treat) and saying 'Box', carpet or whatever we've got him to stand on. We then encourage him to stand on the other object and within 4 or 5 goes, you can just use the command and he'll go sit on a box or square of carpet as he knows what each command / sound means. When we have visitors, they are normally quite amused about the various places we can ask him to sit.
Where his intellect really shows is when he's a step ahead of you and self-corrects. If he's been told to walk to heel or lay down and he's eager for the next command and not in the right position or fully flat to the ground, you can just eye-ball him and give the disappointed look and he'll nudge up closer to you, lay flatter etc. He knows he's not doing it right and you don't need to tell him, just give him 'the look' and he'll put it right.
HarryW said:
My old Cocker bh, now since departed, use to be able to pick a pebble off the beach that I had picked up and thrown. I'd make sure I'd clock one with a recognisable pattern or marking, I'd throw it say 20m and she'd find it amongst the millions of others, always amazed me.
Certainly puts the Crufts find the hankie the owner had touched amongst the 5 other hankie retrieve test into perspective.....
Our dogs are used for tracking, so excel at this kind of stuff. They have of course been trained relentlessly week in, week out. I do have a few friends with Spaniels who just do this. You hide something or lob a stick in to a wood pile, they'll go get whatever you had and never been trained, they just do it. It's quite annoying really h, now since departed, use to be able to pick a pebble off the beach that I had picked up and thrown. I'd make sure I'd clock one with a recognisable pattern or marking, I'd throw it say 20m and she'd find it amongst the millions of others, always amazed me. Certainly puts the Crufts find the hankie the owner had touched amongst the 5 other hankie retrieve test into perspective.....
Dogs noses are an amazing contraption!!
My cat has a box with hundreds of toys.
I play a game with it where I name every toy, and then place each one in a different area of the house.
Then I'll go up to the cat, and say "Go get *** toy", whereupon my cat will look at me, stretch, then go back to sleep.
Cats are much cleverer than dogs, they know better than to partake in such trivialities posed by their staff.
I play a game with it where I name every toy, and then place each one in a different area of the house.
Then I'll go up to the cat, and say "Go get *** toy", whereupon my cat will look at me, stretch, then go back to sleep.
Cats are much cleverer than dogs, they know better than to partake in such trivialities posed by their staff.
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