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Dogs are smart!

What? Haven't these people read the "experts"?!?!?! Dogs can't think at all!

;)

I think this stuff is just fascinating!
 
My old pitty learned words like the dog in that second article! He knew the names of all of our roomates (Austin, Brandon, Cory and Chelsie), he knew my dad as Papa (and he knew "Papa's house", the names of all his toys (ball, bunny, teddy, bone, and ropetoy) He knew the difference between a beer and a soda, and would get you whichever one you asked for! He knew "friend" very well, as he was quite protective over me, when he met new ppl he would watch them untill i told him that person is a friend... he was incredibly smart! He responded to "Ki, go play in your room." or "Ki, come watch Dog Whisperer!"
Brilliant little pup.
 
My old pitty learned words like the dog in that second article! He knew the names of all of our roomates (Austin, Brandon, Cory and Chelsie), he knew my dad as Papa (and he knew "Papa's house", the names of all his toys (ball, bunny, teddy, bone, and ropetoy) He knew the difference between a beer and a soda, and would get you whichever one you asked for! He knew "friend" very well, as he was quite protective over me, when he met new ppl he would watch them untill i told him that person is a friend... he was incredibly smart! He responded to "Ki, go play in your room." or "Ki, come watch Dog Whisperer!"
Brilliant little pup.


My is dog is very verbally oriented too! She will also respond to "TV!" by turning to watch the screen, and knows "upstairs", "downstairs" and the names of everyone in the family. Also, car ride, walk, run, eat, etc...
 
My dog too knows many words... too many if you ask me. Sometimes I'll say a word in the middle of a sentence, and there she is tilting her head back and forth trying to depict what I'm saying. I'll go back to see what caught her attention, and sure enough... In the middle of my story I might have said, walk, ride, play, or one of the hundreds of other words she recognizes. Sometimes it's just a similar word like wall, right, pray, etc...
Dogs are far smarter than most people give them credit for, I think if they had the ability to talk, they could learn to.
 
I have a 12 year old lab who loves to ride in the car and is very well behaved. One time I asked him if he wanted to go for a ride in the car and of course, he started leaping around like crazy he was so excited. As we were walking out the door to the car, my phone rang and my job was calling. So one hadn't showed up and they wanted me to come in and cover. I hung up and told Klondyke "Sorry, I've got to go to work, we'll go later" and started to walk back to the door. Well, Klondyke sat in the driveway and refused to budge, looking back and forth between me and the car. Now, yes, I could have tried to drag my resisting 100lb lab back into the house, but hey, a promise was a promise. So, I called work back and said I would be about 15 minutes later than originally thought. I opened the car door, he jumped in, we drove around the neighborhood for a few minutes, and he was just fine about going back into the house after that! It was so funny, because you could just see him digging in his heels and refusing to move until he got his promised car ride, and he went into the house afterwards, easy as pie. ~LOL~ He was a lot younger then, but he is still a good boy. Getting a bit gray in the muzzle and stiff, but still pretty well behaved. He won first place for most obedient at a dog show we had at work ~grins~
 
Wow!! Outstanding!!!!! My dogs don't get beverages for me, what's wrong with them?

Haha!! It took a LOT of practice! He had to learn to open the fridge and whatnot. ( I tied a cloth on the handle so he could pull the door open, lol) At first, all he ever grabbed was the mustard- everything was mustard to him....lol! But he got the hang of it! I'm sure your dogs could figure it out too!
 
I have seen the same experiment done with dogs vs wolves...in that experiment they found that dogs had to learn what the pointed finger meant...its was not an automatic understanding like this article suggests.

the wolves NEVER learned to follow the human instruction, but 100% of the dogs did.

Interesting either way. :)
 
I have seen the same experiment done with dogs vs wolves...in that experiment they found that dogs had to learn what the pointed finger meant...its was not an automatic understanding like this article suggests.

the wolves NEVER learned to follow the human instruction, but 100% of the dogs did.

Interesting either way. :)
I think I saw the same thing. I believe it was called "Dog Genius" and it aired on either Nat Geo or Animal Planet.
 
On a side note. I always find it funny when scientists do "tests" on dogs, and come to some ground breaking revelation that I myself, and I'm sure many other dog owners, have already figured out. The pointing cognition test seems like old news to me, I have no doubt that my dog, and numerous others, understand such gestures.
 
my brothers male husky gets tied out so he can run and dig in the sandbox. hes high energy. but really smart. knows ball, duck, and blanky. since they have a kid they get him to drag a blanky to them sometimes when they need it. but the amazing thing is when tied out he'll wanna come in when he gets hot. and he usually gets tangled around the porch/deck legs. but before my brother will even attempt to go down and untangle him he says down and around. he goes back off the stairs, and follows my brothers finger to go around the right posts and so fourth so he can come all they way to the top of the deck to get released. now i think thats smart.

our dogs know their commands verbally and hand commands. im glad we taught hand commands because our female corgi has just recently went deaf. but she still knows what to do.

i think dogs are really intelligent animals. i dont see why people would think otherwise.
 
Okay, I think this is more interesting than the dogs; a baby human will pick the wrong cup based on previous trials instead of the cup they just SAW someone put the toy under.
 
Our German Shepherd understands quite a bit of German, but he has picked up on English words and associated them with certain actions - when one of us will say 'I'm tired..' he'll bolt into the bedroom so he can lay on our bed. If anyone says the word 'hungry', he's impersonating a leap frog with his excitement at the thought of food. They're really amazing creatures.
 
Imagine 100 lbs of German Shepherd, leap frogging around with no regard for his surroundings... funny yes... but painful for sure..
 
Great article, Kyle. You ladies and Michael have great stories. I don't talk to Brutus that much. But he does know what a pointing finger means. In fact, almost every dog I've ever owned learned the pointing finger. He does know come, no, outside, go for a ride, stop....but knowing the pointing finger is really helpful. What fascinates me is that he watches my face, and I think he knows yes/no/good/bad/laptime/not laptime/and many other things before I actually say anything.

Oh yeah, and he knows that fingersnap means get to my side 5 seconds ago.
 
Imagine 100 lbs of German Shepherd, leap frogging around with no regard for his surroundings... funny yes... but painful for sure..
But your name is MalinoisK9 :)!

Our German Shepherd understands quite a bit of German, but he has picked up on English words and associated them with certain actions - when one of us will say 'I'm tired..' he'll bolt into the bedroom so he can lay on our bed. If anyone says the word 'hungry', he's impersonating a leap frog with his excitement at the thought of food. They're really amazing creatures.
That's funny. I also have a German Shepherd, and I sometimes have to monitor my actions to stop from sending off signals. For example... I know I have a problem playing video games, when at night my dog goes down to my room, jumps on my bed, and lays down at the sound of the machine going off.
I so wish I had some videos sometimes of her little behaviors. I once caught her sitting directly in front of the answering machine, tilting her head from side to side, to the sound of a telemarketer's voice.
Around a month ago, I was leaning against the couch on the floor, she brings me her collar, drops it, goes and grabs my sandals, drops them, and sat in front of me giving me the stare, all without telling her to do any of it.
 
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