Dogs As Intelligent As Average Two-Year-Old Children

Ponca City, We love you writes "The Telegraph reports that researchers using tests originally designed to demonstrate the development of language, pre-language and basic arithmetic in human children have found that dogs are capable of understanding up to 250 words and gestures, can count up to five and can perform simple mathematical calculations putting them on par with the average two-year-old child. While most dogs understand simple commands such as sit, fetch and stay, a border collie tested by Professor Coren showed a knowledge of 200 spoken words. 'Obviously we are not going to be able to sit down and have a conversation with a dog, but like a two-year-old, they show that they can understand words and gestures,' says Professor Stanley Coren, a leading expert on canine intelligence at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Dogs can tell that one plus one should equal two and not one or three,' says Coren, adding that dogs 'can also deliberately deceive, which is something that young children only start developing later in their life.' Coren believes centuries of selective breeding and living alongside humans has helped to hone the intelligence of dogs. 'They may not be Einsteins, but are sure closer to humans than we thought.'"

Comments

Wolves

[pantherace]

Be interesting to see what a Wolf would be like as they tend to have a larger brain to body mass ratio.

Re:Wolves

[Z00L00K]

That's an interesting idea.

And then - different breeds have different levels of potential too. Having been in contact with different breeds I have realized that there are those that are almost dumb as a brick while others are smart enough to figure out exactly when to sneak out and sneak back without being noticed and also realize when their master has confused right and left when they are given a command.

Re:Wolves

[Daniel Dvorkin]

According to TFA, wolves score lower than domestic dogs on the intelligence tests used. I suspect this may be an artifact of the test, since wolves are pretty damned smart in their wild behaviors. But unsurprisingly, domestic dogs have a kind of intelligence that responds better to tests designed by the same species that's been breeding and training them for the last several thousand years.

Re:Wolves

[garnkelflax]

I watched a program on Animal Planet a few years ago where they ran tests on wolves. They determined that wolves had no desire to 'please' (utilize) humans regardless of whether they were raised from pups or not. One of the experiments involved food locked in a large cage. The wolves would scratch at the cage and try to beat it to death forever. The domesticated dogs would sniff around, check the cage for a while, then go to a human with those big puppy eyes asking for help. Before our Labradoodle I thought a half german half dobie mix was about as smart as they could get. But this one's vocabulary is astounding. She is about 90 pounds of brain. Besides sit, lay down, poop, pee, high five, shake, roll over, play dead, wait with cracker on nose then flip and catch it, and all the other stuff.... She can bring you any toy you ask for or take it to any named person over 90% of the time. She will also take her toys to her toy bin when told to do so. She knows the names of the animals outside the house and will attack whichever you tell her to (squirrel, bird, chipmunk, bunny) She understands words like closer, farther, gentle. Her favorite toy is a battery operated fur-real poodle that she gently brings around the house and will bring to us when she wants it turned on. It is still working after 2 years. She will take a treat into her mouth and not eat it until you tell her to. Or drop it if you tell her instead. She will go to parts of the house you tell her to go (kitchen, living room, upstairs, downstairs etc...) She mimics human behavior constantly. One example, if you are moving branches to a pile from the yard she participates and gets it right. One time we were tearing up the carpet transition to the linoleum on one side of the kitchen. She immediately went to the other side and started tearing up the other one (didn't need to come up though). We have a toy elephant made for babies that you pull the fabric string and it shakes as the string goes back in. She plays with it every day like a baby would. Pulling the string and making it shake. She has favorite rocks outside that she places in different areas. When we go to the lake to swim she hunts for a rock, takes it out to where it is about 5 feet deep and drops it then goes diving for it. She will do this for hours. Tons of other stuff to. She kinda freaks me out.

Re:Wolves

[Anonymous Coward]

Hence the pitfall of fuzzy terms like "intelligence".

Re:Wolves

[garnkelflax]

I agree. But with this one she seems to have a higher level of learning speed and a touch of reasoning. Usually 5 minutes is enough to teach her something. You do 5 minutes one day, let her sleep on it, then the next day she has it when you try it again. And it is more like she is training us. I think she is just adept in figuring out what we want so she can get what she wants. With the exception of the mimicry and weird play stuff. She seems to do that all on her own without caring about reward.

Re:Wolves

[Shakrai]

Perhaps we should get dolphins to design some intelligence tests to compare wolves and dogs and see who performs better on those.

That's easy. Mice would perform the best ;) Following them would be the dolphins and in a distant third would be homo sapiens.

Re:Wolves

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people think certain breeds are dumb because they misunderstand the instincts of the breed and/or confuse trainability and responsiveness with intelligence. Breeds commonly called dumb, like many of the hounds, were bred to work independently of humans. Whereas a retriever or herding dog needed to expect and act on cues from humans, a sight or scent hound would need to track based on his own instincts. A bloodhound who was constantly asking for direction would be a very poor scenthound and would not be used as breeding stock--just like an Australian Shepherd who ran without checking in would be a failure as a herding dog.

It's important for people to research and understand the instincts in their particular dog, including mixed breeds, before bringing a pet into their home.

Signed, Anonymous and Lazy--rather than cowardly.

Re:Wolves

[Reziac]

Pro dog trainer here with 40 years experience.

In my observation, wolves and wolf-hybrids are fairly dumb -- about on a par with the dimmer breeds of dogs, such as the majority of purely pet breeds. Which is indeed about the level of a 2 year old human child. This stands to reason since there hasn't been any intensive selection for intelligence or reasoning power. (Coyotes seem to be somewhat smarter, but as a DNA profile study revealed, a lot of coyotes have domestic dog DNA, dating from about 2000 years ago.)

The bright breeds, those that have been bred for brains and thinking ability and that have to do a specific job that goes against wolf instincts (primarily gundogs and some herding breeds, but most especially Chesapeakes and fieldbred Labradors) are about on a par with a bright 5-6YO human child, and will think every bit as far, up to the point of playing simple practical jokes on unwitting humans.

Trust me, it's a damn good thing for us that Chessies (and some Labs) don't have opposable thumbs.... that, and inability to form words, are probably the real limiting factors, much as they are for Downs syndrome children. And some dogs learn to work around those limits. I have one Lab who can open any door that doesn't lock with a key!

Actually...

[ratnerstar]

...my dog is a lot like Einstein, in that her hair goes everywhere and she refuses to accept quantum mechanics.

I've suspected this for a while

[MR.Mic]

I've suspected this for a while, which is why I get especially worked up over people who get their jollies tormenting and abusing animals.

It's basically like abusing a child, and is just as sick.

Re:I've suspected this for a while

[SteveFoerster]

Working at an abattoir doesn't make you a psychopath.

I'm not so sure. Considering the gruesome methods used to kill livestock in slaughterhouses I can't imagine working in one is all that good for one's long term psychological health.

dog lover science.

[girlintraining]

'They may not be Einsteins, but are sure closer to humans than we thought.'

I don't think so. You're comparing a fully-mature animal to one in its infancy. We've long known that animals can learn behaviors that mimick that of humans -- in some cases, their physiological parts are superior to humans (the eyes of a hawk, for example). But to say they're "closer to humans than we thought" -- that's a quotable designed to be eaten up by the popular press because a lot of people are dog lovers and will jump at the chance to say "Aw, see, old charlie here is almost human smart!"

I'm sorry to say that, no, Charlie is still a dog. A creature that has spent several thousand years being domesticated by humans -- I'd damn well expect it to be able to emulate certain kinds of human behavior and show types of intelligence other animals do not, that's exactly what domestication is supposed to do. But a dog does not have near-human intelligence. It doesn't even have remotely human intelligence -- it has simply learned behaviors that we can understand and manipulate to a far greater degree than other animals.

Re:dog lover science.

[plover]

A creature that has spent several thousand years being domesticated by humans -- I'd damn well expect it to be able to emulate certain kinds of human behavior and show types of intelligence other animals do not, that's exactly what domestication is supposed to do.

I don't know if that's a valid argument. Even after several thousand years, domesticated cats are no more useful now then they have ever been. They're hunters of domestic pests, no more. Dogs, on the other hand, have been bred for hunting, where they point, retrieve, and flush out game. They've been bred for herding, rounding up cattle and sheep on command. They've been bred for guard duty. They have learned a lot more than other animals given the same opportunity.

Re:dog lover science.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

You're comparing a fully-mature animal to one in its infancy.

Profoundly retarded humans, such as adults who operate on a two-year-old level, still have what we recognize as human-type intelligence. They don't have as much of it as most people do, obviously, but they still think like humans as opposed to cattle, or hawks, or trout. So if dogs think similarly enough to us to score at all on human-type intelligence tests, then it's silly to say that their intelligence is "not even remotely human."

Re:dog lover science.

[spiffmastercow]

Well, cats can learn to use the toilet.. I've yet to see a dog do that. Personally I still prefer dogs though.. Cats are assholes.

This is a crock

[Latent Heat]

PBS Nova had a show on the comparative skills of humans and the great apes.

One test was that the subject was offered a treat inside a cage -- a banana pellet for the ape, a Gummy Bear candy for the human child -- an a kind of toothed rake to retreive the treat.

In each case, the rake was handed to the subject tooth-side down, and the teeth were to widely spaced to make and headway retrieving the treat. In each case the subject, a chimp and a 2-year-old human, raked away to no effect.

Then the experimenter turned the rake over and demonstrated how the treat could easily be retrieved using the flat end of the rake. Then the rake was returned to the subject with the tooth-side-down position of the rake.

The ape went back to raking away to no effect. With respect to the human 2-year-old, however, not only did the 2-year-old achieve 1-trial learning that the flat side of the rake was the effective way to get the Gummy Bear candy, when the 2-year-old was shown this technique, the 2-year-old laughed out loud, as if to say, "Oh, that's cheating, but if cheating is allowed, I am certainly going to do it."

What I figure was the role of the laughter and the sense that the rake experiment was a joke is this: humor is connected with this type of reasoning and this type of learning. A lot of learning is a matter of figuring out the exception to the rule, what has to be un-learned in order to effect an outcome. So not only did the 2-year-old learn in one trial, the 2-year-old developed a mental model of how the rake was supposed to operate and then made a conceptual correction to that model, and thought the whole thing to be funny.

I don't know the equivalent experiment with a dog as dogs lack the hand dexterity of humans and apes, but the minute I see a dog respond with 1-trial learning to a related situation, only then will I believe any claim as to a dog have the intelligence of a 2-year-old human.

Re:This is a crock

[ahabswhale]

How many children and apes did they test with? One of each is not statistically significant as intelligence varies wildly in both species. Hell, I know adults who wouldn't pass the test you describe above.

Re:This is a crock

[MindlessAutomata]

Maybe it was a smart kid, maybe it was a dumb chimp.

You really think they only did these tests with 1 kid and 1 chimp?

Maybe being a teacher requires a special bond, and the chimp just didn't care.

The candy is rewarding to both chimp and child so they presumably both had motivation to do this.

Maybe that kind of learning is done best with subjects before they hit puberty.

....What? That "kind of learning" (modeling) is something that humans do all throughout life. This is nonsense. You're reaching.

There are many things that can be extrapolated from an experiment like that, so I wouldn't really treat it as some sort of scientific proof that animals are dumb, and there is something special/magical about the human brain.

This is hardly a claim that the human brain is magical. You've been really reaching with this one. I know critical thinking is good and all but scientists aren't always dumber than slashdot armchair scientists.

Schrödinger dog?

[girlintraining]

...my dog is a lot like Einstein, in that her hair goes everywhere and she refuses to accept quantum mechanics.

There's no reason we can't have a Schrödinger's dog too. Try it. Whether the dog survives or not, it'll have a far greater appreciation of quantum mechanics. Note: Do not put Schrödinger dog with Schrödinger cat. Experimental results may be random.

Re:Schrödinger dog?

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: Do not put Schrödinger dog with Schrödinger cat. Experimental results may be random.

Actually, if you put a SchrÃdinger dog with a SchrÃdinger cat together, they will form an *Entangled* state.

Thinking Brain dogs for the terminally stupid.

[plover]

does this additional knowledge mean that we will end up with dogs in other support roles?

How about a "Thinking Brain" dog for some of the terminally stupid people I have to deal with? The blind and deaf already use dogs, why not stupid people? Are you a stupid person who can't make a decision in the fast food restaurant? Dog orders you a cheeseburger. Are you so stupid that you can't decide if you should turn left or right at the stoplight? Dog tells you to turn left. Are you a dumb pedestrian who stops in the middle of the intersection to answer their cell phone? Dog drags you to the curb.

This would be GREAT!

Re:Thinking Brain dogs for the terminally stupid.

[couchslug]

"How about a "Thinking Brain" dog for some of the terminally stupid people I have to deal with? "

Enough dogs are afflicted with stupid humans as it is.

Enabling the stupid just makes empowered window-lickers.

No. No other roles for dogs.

[denzacar]

But there is some breakthrough work being done on training 2-year-olds to sniff for bombs and drugs.

Academic elitists insulting our children

[Anonymous Coward]

No one needs academic elitists from Canada telling them their own sons and daughters are no smarter than an average dog. My husband Todd showed me this article while we were playing with Trig, and I sat down and I thought to myself, boy, what's the world coming to, that if you could equate a puppy's intelligence with that of an unborn child, you could give the puppy a post-birth abortion?

And I'm telling you, when you put forth Americans in front of these scientists on Obama's health care panel, and they put your baby and an Ivy League-educate golden retriever on the scale, who do you trust they'll declare the victor? This is dystopian, this is an outrage, this is what we must fight, America!

--Sarah Palin

Original Article

[Lord Byron II]

http://www.livescience.com/animals/090808-smart-dogs.html

Re:What good does this do us?

[Lord Fury]

Well 200 words is plenty to say "Hello IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?" and "Are you sure its plugged in?"

Dogs and kids tell a lot about their parents . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I have seen some nasty, aggressive dogs. They tend to have nasty, aggressive owners. I have seen some nasty, aggressive children. They tend to have nasty, aggressive parents.

I have also seen well-behaved children and dogs. Guess what their parents are like?

Obligatory joke...

[bennomatic]

So a dog goes into the telegraph office and submits his message for transmission: "Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof."

The telegraph operator says, "We normally charge by the word, but if you like, I'll give you the tenth 'woof' for free."

To this, the dog responded, "But that, my good chap, would make no sense at all!"

Summary is Wrong

[DynaSoar]

The statement "as intelligent as a 2 year old child" implies the ability to perform on par with a 2 year old with average mental abilities, or another child of different age with greater or lesser abilities, on an appropriate test of "intelligence" such the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (Revised).

Since those expected responses which are not verbal are written, obviously they'll score 0.

Since cognitive science seems to get further from a definition of intelligence the harder it tries to pin it down, even using the word is a problem. I quit believing in the concept when I saw a retarded child perform successfully (though slower, and with more effort)in a class of gifted children mostly because of the attention offered in the situation.

"Can perform successfully tests of some functions and display some cognitive abilities which when given to humans can be accomplished by more than half of 2 year old children" might be acceptable.

Besides, I've seen some dogs that were too stupid to live. And I've run and howled with some that I've trusted alone with my baby children. Who cares how smart a person they'd make? What matters is how smart a dog they are, and the smartest rarely need things like arithmetic.

For that matter, how smart is a 2 year old human on a dog scale of "intelligence"? After all, that's 21 in dog years. It's not 7 to 1, it's 10.5 to 1 for the first two, then 4 to 1 after.

Occam's Razor

[scubamage]

The simplest possible explanation: Your dog is the antichrist.

Re:right to vote

[lennier]

"Cats, on the other hand, would be overwhelmingly Republican."

But of course - who do you think funds the Cato Institute?

I'm not so sure...

[oljanx]

Dogs might understand about as many words and gestures as the average two year old, but I don't believe they're as intelligent. At least not according to our definition of intelligence. My two year old (27 months) asked me last night, "Why are balls round?". Then followed up with "is the moon a ball?". You can teach a two year old to communicate, but they come up with those questions on their own. Would a dog ask questions like that if it could communicate with us? I doubt it, but maybe I'm wrong.

Re:evolutionist's are funny, and no I wont registe

[anagama]

What evidence do you have that cows march happily off to the slaughterhouse? Or that tail wagging in a cow means they are happy? When I was a kid, we raised some "beefers". We had one slaughtered and the other cried and behaved oddly -- the first cow was butchered near the barn, not at some far away place.

Personally, I just don't eat mammals anymore. I'm not sure where the "too smart eat" line is, but I've quit eating in my own class at least. Birds concern me to some degree, but crustaceans don't. Anyway, if it has a neocortex, I won't eat it.

Re:evolutionist's are funny, and no I wont registe

[TheSambassador]

You clearly have no understanding of how evolution works.

Evolution isn't some "magic memory" passed on magically from one cow that dies to all other cows that are born after that. Evolution is the result of tiny mutations that for one reason or another have been continuously passed down from generation to generation. All of the cows that have "realized" that they were about to be slaughtered (not that they would be capable of that kind of realization in the first place) have also been... well, slaughtered.

Not that this study had much to do with evolution. It just has to do with dog's current levels of intelligence.

Re:evolutionist's are funny, and no I wont registe

[TheLink]

Crows or other corvids are very smart too (smarter than chimps in some ways). Anyway, given the sorts of stuff they eat, it's probably a good idea to not eat them ;).

Octopuses are also quite smart. At least one seem to have rather poor memory though - forgets after a few days and has to relearn stuff.

http://www.pitara.com/discover/earth/online.asp?story=111

Re:Dobermans

[Rogerborg]

As a doctor, you should probably know that you can't have pups with a dog, neutered or not. Don't let that stop you from trying though.

Re:evolutionist's are funny, and no I wont registe

[blackest_k]

People are not comfortable with eating intelligent animals and cows are intelligent enough, the fact that they trust the people who raise them to lead them off for slaughter isn't a sign of stupidity. Your average small child would be as trusting.

Funny thing is we tend to reward animals that escape the slaughter house with a reprieve. Is this just due to a natural support of the underdog or perhaps that the animal will know whats coming and will freak out and alert the other animals to whats going on.

Chickens tend not to show the same survival instinct but being raised in a cage unable to move or see daylight is it any wonder they tend to just sit there when accidentally released early from a cage. death might seem a welcome release from such a poor quality of life.

An interesting thing is the difference between an animal and meat, it seems for most people once an animal has had its head removed it transitions from being an animal and some emotional involvement, to becoming meat something to eat.

I'm not a vegetarian by any means and I enjoy meat and fish, you can't beat eating fish that you have caught and prepared yourself (assuming you master deboning).

Some people think its cruel to do your own slaughtering and butchery, it could be if you didn't ensure a rapid and as pain free as possible death for the animal. It's not a good thing that people are divorced from the reality of how meat is produced because it means low standards of care get applied to animals while they are alive in the name of cheap meat production and maximum profit.

Honestly if you choose to eat meat you should choose to be informed about its production.

It's funny but a lot of racism seems to flow in the same way, denigrating intelligence, emphasizing small differences in order to treat people as less than human. Perhaps if there was a better understanding of killing and cruelty there would be less of it in the world.