It is a bad habit of ours that we judge dogs by our own standards. We assign them human value systems and expect them to conform to them. We also attempt to measure the intelligence of a dog based on human criteria. This is why many people mistakenly think their dog is none too clever.
In the wild, dogs needed the intelligence to not get killed and to find food. Those that did so were smart enough. When man came along and decided he wanted dogs to help with hunting and guard settlements, we took instincts, not intelligence, and used them for our advantage.
Read on as Andrew McInnis explores the best methods to understand the intelligence of a dog.
Some dog owners and dog trainers expect their dog's level of thinking and smartness to be the same of humans, when being trained. This mistaken assumption about dog psychology can be devastating to the expectations of both the dog owner and the dog itself.
Trainers shouldn't assess canine intelligence against human standards. Each individual canine may possess his own unique talent. If the occasion does not arise for the animal to display this talent, it doesn't mean he's dumb. For centuries, behaviour experts have been trying to devise a test that measures all aspects of human intelligence and have failed miserably. With this success rate in mind, how can canine experts profess to measure the dog's intelligence when we do not even speak the same language?
When judging how clever your dog is, don't forget that labelling a dog as stupid can be as unproductive and damaging as labelling humans the same way. Some people may remember the stigma that surrounded the ‘not so clever’ Dalmatian breed. Little did people know that they were dealing with dogs that were deaf, an all too common trait in the breed, and not ignorant or stupid dogs.
If an animal is labelled dumb, the owner usually gives up trying to teach the dog. The label then becomes self-fulfilling because if his owner won't train him, the dog really won't know anything.
On the other hand, labelling a dog smart may create unrealistic expectations and disappointment if he doesn't respond as expected. Perhaps all these "dumb" dogs are just clever enough to make their owners think they are dumb to avoid the effort of obeying! A very frustrated Basset Hound owner complained to his instructor that he had spent a month trying to teach his dog to sit on command and the dog just didn't get it.
As the owner was explaining his dilemma, the instructor was mindlessly playing with a piece of liver that she had not put away after working with another dog. The Basset noticed the liver and began nudging the instructor. From pure habit, she told the dog to sit.
The Basset plopped his rear end down as fast as Bassets do. This is a good demonstration of learning theory proven long ago that a lack of response does not mean that learning is not occurring. This dog was learning, the owner just hadn't found the right motivator to get him to respond.
Perhaps canine intelligence is not measurable, particularly when the criteria for intelligence are measured on another species' yardstick. Fortunately, regardless of breed, the great majority of dogs are intelligent enough to grasp basic obedience commands when training is intelligently presented. A trainer armed with motivating training methods and a good understanding of the principles behind canine learning can shape a dog's behaviour into desirable conduct.
Understanding the sensory capabilities of the canine is key to being sympathetic to your dog’s understanding of the world. The dog was given a set of tools similar to our own, but different enough that they cannot be compared to our own when measuring intelligence.
The World According To Your Dog's Eyes
Like tourists who assume everyone speaks English, or should, it is second nature to us to think that the world looks pretty much the same to all creatures, great and small, including our dogs. For example, we rarely give much thought to the optical processes that turn light into vision; we assume that our visual version of reality is reality.
Even those of us who wear glasses fall into this way of thinking. Glasses bring things back into focus so they once again look like they are. If those people who run around staging role-playing seminars on multiculturalism for business executives were to do the same for multi-species, I would suggest as the first group exercise they get everyone down on the floor with their eyeballs about six inches off the ground. Simply by virtue of visual perspective, the world looks very different to a Chihuahua.
Dogs also differ from humans in their ability to focus on near objects, to perceive and distinguish detail, and to see contrasts between light and dark. Some of these differences are relatively minor, but some must result in a highly altered version of reality. The most remarkable feature of the human eye is its extraordinary power of "accommodation."
The lens in a normal eye, when relaxed, is of just the right thickness and curvature to bend incoming light rays from a far distance so that they converge in sharp focus upon the retina at the back of the eye. If the lens were incapable of adjustment, the light rays from close objects would end up converging at an imaginary point well behind the retina; the result would be a grossly blurred image striking the light-sensitive cells of the retina.
But by squeezing the lens with muscles that are under unconscious control, we can make the lens thicker and alter its curvature, bringing close objects into proper focus. The greater the squeeze, the closer to our face is the focus.
In young children, the eye's lens is capable of adjusting by as much as 14 dioptres, an optical unit used in describing the power of lenses (and in prescribing eyeglasses). That degree of accommodation corresponds to being able to focus on everything from infinity to an object less than three inches away. By way of comparison, eyeglasses with a power of 14 dioptres would look like the proverbial Coke bottle bottoms. (Most glasses for correcting nearsightedness in humans run about 1 to 5 dioptres.)
Dogs have a much more limited power of accommodation, generally not more than 2 or 3 dioptres, which means they can focus on close objects only if they are no nearer than a foot or two. Anything closer than that will unavoidably be a blur. That may well explain why dogs generally try to sniff or touch objects at close range: they simply cannot see them very well. If the relaxed lens normally brings a distant object's image into focus behind the retina, the result is hyperopia or farsightedness.
The World According To Your Dog's Ears
Dogs have much more sensitive hearing than we do, but their hearing abilities diminish at a faster rate. When we hear a sound, we have a library of sounds in our head to which we compare the sound in order to assign it a source. We automatically know when a sound is normal or abnormal and we respond accordingly.
When a dog hears a sound, they go through a similar process, but they are listening out for danger first and foremost. It takes a long time for a dog to be comfortable and confident enough to ignore sudden sounds. Even those sounds which are inaudible to us can put dogs on high alert. For survival reasons, nature gave all dogs a default response setting, which means that any sound is treated as threatening or dangerous until proved otherwise. This is why dogs are quick to respond to new sounds in a manner that we’d rather they didn’t.
The World According To Your Dog's Nose
The best analogy for comparing human and canine senses of smell is this. If we can smell ‘sausages’, dogs can smell ‘pork, leek, fat, salt, pepper, additives and much more besides’. The dog has evolved to rely on their nose to a much larger extent that we have, which is why they are governed in their actions by what they can smell. Expecting a dog to ignore these impulses is like expecting a person to drive with their eyes covered up. When a dog is distracted by a scent, you should be in a position to bring the dog’s focus away from that scent, but you should also be prepared to allow the dog to explore the scent in order to figure out the source. If you found a note stuck on your fridge with the word ‘urgent’ at the top but we’re allowed to read it you’d be driven to distraction. Finding a scent is the same for a dog.
Dogs are highly functioning intellectuals in their own way, provided we don’t put human expectations on them. Understanding that every time we train a dog to do something, that dog is making allowances and attempting to accommodate our desires. Your dog may not be quick to sit on command, but this is rarely a sign of stupidity.
