Dog Intelligence

Texas-Girl

In researching dog breeds, I have seen certain breeds described as intelligent. What exactly does this mean?

Does intelligence equal trainability?

Also, I've heard people say that a certain dog was intelligent but not devious? How is deviousness exhibited in a dog? Can you give me some examples?

rosemaryninja

Suzanne Clothier has said there are six factors that make up a dog's trainability. Intelligence is only one of these. The others are willingness, confidence, sense of humour, boredom threshold and selectively bred behaviours.

Intelligence, I feel, refers to how sensitive a dog is to his environment. For example, when it comes to breeds like the GSD or the Border Collie, which usually excel in obedience, they are extremely sensitive to their environments. They can be trained with extreme precision. It is not so much as "sit" as it is "sit three feet away from me facing the right." Intelligence also means how quickly a dog is able to pick up on what you want it to do. This doesn't necessarily guarantee a dog that is easy to train... for example, Spunky is very intelligent in that she usually understands what I want, but other factors tend to get in the way of her trainability (boredom threshold, sense of humour).

jbray01

i've heard that intellegence can have positive or negative effects.

on one side, it can mean that the dog is easier to train and picks up commands very quickly.

however, i've heard that it can mean that a dog is more aloof and less likely to respond to commands.

DogGoneGood

Personally, I've found the more intelligent the dog is, the more intelligent the trainer has to be.

Like rosemaryninja said, there's several other factors that make a dog easy to train or difficult to train. I usually use my boys as examples so here goes; Coal is the perfect example of both breeds in him (Border Collie and Labrador Retriever). He's got the intellegence of a BC but the lack of an attentionspan and is such a big goofball like a Lab that he gets easily distracted from training and would rather pull pranks on me than learn something new. Though he is very willing to please, and picks commands up quickly, his capability of doing everything that's asked of him isn't always there.

Linkin is a German Shepherd/Boxer. I don't know much about the trainablility of Boxers, though am slowly learning more about them because of Linkin, but Linkin is an extremely sharp dog. He solves puzzle with amazing speed and determination. You can give him food in something and when you watch him try to figure out how to get it out it's just amazing to watch... he'll not only try several different things to get the food out and finally use the one that works, but he'll look around him. If Coal gets the same thing he'll watch how Coal does it first and try that. (Though Coal's really bad at this game...).
Linkin's obedience is like watching a beautifully choreographed dance. He does everything right on the mark. I can tell him to heel and walk in circles, forwards, backwards you name it and he sticks exactly by my side.

However... Linkin is TOO smart... he is a constant challenge to keep entertained, teaching him new commands can be difficult because he tends to get bored. You have to outsmart him and be extremely creative in your training to teach him anything new, but once he's got it; boy does he ever get it!

Texas-Girl

Can someone give me examples of devious behaviors in a dog?

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TooneyDogs

When I think of devious, I think of manipulativeness. For example; one dog sees another chewing a bone...he wants the bone but, knows he can't take it directly so, he grabs the other dogs favorite toy and starts to throw it around. The 2nd dog goes after the toy and the 1st dog then grabs the bone.

Texas-Girl

Wow! I never knew that a dog could be that smart! (No pets yet...I've just been researching and learning.)

zimandtakandgrrandmimi

a devious dog is one who will steal food off your plate by peeing in the corner in front of you and then when you put your plate down to clean it up they swipe your fillet mignon...(yes this happened to me...the third day I had Bolo..)

DogGoneGood

Yup, Linkin does this to Coal all the time. Coal's the type to just STEAL the toy/bone away from Linkin, but Linkin is a sneaky bugger and tricks Coal into giving it up

They tend to amaze me constantly at how intelligent they are, as well has how complex of emotions they've expressed (like guilt, or embarassment).

ETA - Stanley Coren has a few really good books out about dogs that talk about their intelligence, emotions etc. I haven't read all of them but the ones I have read are really good.

Ones to look out for are:

• The Intelligence of Dogs: A Guide to the Thoughts, Emotions, and Inner Lives of our Canine Companions
• How Dogs Think: What the World Looks like to Them and Why They Act the Way They Do
• How to Speak Dog: Mastering the Art of Dog-Human Communication

I'm currently reading The Pawprints of History: Dogs and the Course of Human Events, and it's really good so far... but is moreso a collection of stories based on research he's done about people who have greatly affected the world who were greatly affected by a dog; and in turn couldn't have done what they did without a dogs impact on their own lives. It's really good anyway, and I think any of his books are worth picking up if you're interested in dog behavior!

Laurelin

I know you're interested in papillons and perhaps this is where the deviousness question comes from? Paps are very very VERY intelligent dogs (can't stress this enough) and very trainable- think more along the lines of border collies and german shepherds than most toy breeds. Because of this, they are one of the top performance breeds out there. They are also known for being very devious at times. They're very easy to train for people that understand them, though they are sensitive and sooo smart it can complicate things at times.

For example, papillons seem to learn every repetition. This means in one sitting you can teach something and they remember. This also means in one sitting you can mess up and they learn something you really didn't want them to learn. They keep you on your toes. They're also very very intuitive dogs- they seem to respond to the slightest cues from their people. This also means they like to anticipate what you're going to want of them well in advance. This can cause problems sometimes, lol.

As far as deviousness goes, that little angelic looking papillon in my sig (Rose, the cute one) is just plain devious. She will do things to just get her way. She knows how to trick the other dogs out of their food/toys. She can hide them and just has a blast tormenting the male. You can't trick her though. You know the fake throw thing a lot of dogs fall for, she will never fall for it. She is also known to trick people into giving her food for not doing a thing. I noticed I was even doing this the other day, lol. The other three dogs were being fabulous and Rose was tagging along getting treats without actually doing the commands.

Nikki, my sheltie who recently passed away, was also devious. Like.... wasn't allowed upstairs, but loved to go watch the rodents. So when we'd be coming home she'd be hightailing it down the stairs so she wouldn't get caught where she wasn't supposed to be.

Texas-Girl

What are the disadvantages of having a very intelligent dog?

wvasko

I would rather have a stupid dog that wants to please than a smart dog that doesn't as Laurelin said they can be devious and actually hornswoggle their way out of the training. Actually for me training something smarter than me has always been a problem. There are so many smart dogs out there.

zimandtakandgrrandmimi

id say the biggest thing with smart dogs is more training and higher value motivation is required.

my dog is very smart and eager to to please but also wants her own way and can be tricky and stubborn about it. I have to try and anticipate what she will do in any given situation. With careful observation and time this gets easier and easier...


so I guess...the smarter the dog...the more effort needed...imo

briteday

If you have a smart dog you have to be a smarter human about training them. Like Laurelin said, if you train something wrong the first time the behavior is likely to be repeated and difficult to break. We also have papillons. I love them for their intelligence (as I hate teaching something over and over and over) but they do keep you on your toes.

Example...the paps I told just once when they came to us to "be off" the screen door (when they wanted inside they would put their front paws up on the screen and lean, damaging the screen). The paps never did it again. Our shelter pom mix has been with us for two years now and still hasn't learned to stay off the screen or to go into her crate on her own, despite many different training strategies.

I'll take the smart ones if given a choice.

wvasko

That's because you haven't met a smart Pap with a screendoor fetish yet.

Laurelin

I much prefer the smart ones, but it's all personal preference, really. The slower dogs just take too long for my tastes. (Trey has always been slower, even though he's a sheltie) I never realized how easy I had it until I started trying to work with some other more er..... slow dogs at the shelter. I'm used to my papillons who actually WANT to please and will get so into figuring out what this new command means that it's started to feel somewhat like cheating. I've always been a fan of the "smart" breeds that have a high drive to please. That drive makes a huge difference, you can have a VERY intelligent dog that is very difficult to train because of a more independent nature. There are many 'smart' breeds that often don't get labeled as smart because they really just don't care to do what you say (they know better, of course )

Basically, you need to watch out for trickery and try to be smarter than your dog (though this fails sometimes as seen by Rose's ability to get rewards without doing anything without me realizing) You also need to avoid being a dumb trainer (like me the other day). I managed to mess up the clicker training by accidentally clicking once when she jumped at the end of her 'come' and then for a long time afterwards, she'd jump at 'come'. We've since then fixed it, but it was a pain. The other thing I've noticed is that smarter dogs can really get themselves into trouble sometimes... Beau is a master at using his paws almost like hands and getting into things he shouldn't. They're great problem solvers- good and bad. Games like hide and seek are a blast, but when they figure out how something works and start making their own 'rules' about it, you get some problems. Also, when they get bored, they really can be 'creative' in figuring out how to alleviate their boredom. (Not always in a god way)

But really, I enjoy these types of breeds. They're such a joy to train and really fun to be around. And I can always impress visitors with parlor tricks. (Never fails, I don't know if no one actually trains their pet dogs anymore, but our repertoire of tricks always seems to impress people)

Texas-Girl

Thanks for the insight!

amynrichie

Here is another example of deviousness: My sis's schnauzer would run upstairs to bark furiously. Bree the boxer would follow to see "who's there. " While Bree was busy looking out the windows, Haley would run back down stairs to eat the rest of Bree's dinner. This happened a few times before my sister caught on!

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