[HN Gopher] Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for m...
___________________________________________________________________
Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100
different toys
Author : Capstanlqc
Score : 122 points
Date : 2024-02-23 15:31 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I adopted an older obese dog many years ago that seemed to
| understand hundreds of words, including the brand names of junk
| food. He would listen closely to human conversations. For example
| if someone mentioned socks, shoes, leash, walk or synonyms of
| those he would immediately go wait by the door for a walk.
| silverquiet wrote:
| Dogs can pick up on a lot of human things that aren't spoken;
| they're actually very good at body language. That and their
| ability to eat starch/more omnivorous diets are probably the
| biggest differences between them and wolves.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| I once visited a wolf rescue where a wolf pup was being
| raised in a pen with two Great Pyrenees puppies (to socialize
| it with them). The biggest behavioral difference I noticed
| between the two was that while the wolf was willing to be
| (and perhaps even enjoyed being) pet and handled, it
| absolutely did not care that we were in the pen. It wandered
| off after a few moments checking out the new visitors,
| whereas the puppies (being puppies) wouldn't leave us alone.
| Loughla wrote:
| There is nothing in this world like a Great Pyrenees puppy
| at about 8 months. They're SO big, but SO dumb and cuddly.
| They're the perfect thing, and the embodiment of joy.
| airbreather wrote:
| I have owned six dogs in my life, most recently getting a 7 week
| old pup staffy x ridgeback, now 16 weeks old. He goes with our 9
| year old girl staffy, who can follow conversations, eg planning
| to go to the park or beach without directly mentioning it in any
| way.
|
| All my dogs have understood a lot of words, some more than
| others, but all way more than 20.
|
| The aspects that promote this, I believe, are this:
|
| 1. They are treated as companion animals. They live in the house
| with the humans and generally have full access thru the house.
|
| 2. No crating. Maybe if it is some kind of working dog, but a
| companion animal is a companion, and would you put a companion in
| a crate 22 hours a day? I don't care if you think that a dog
| comes to like the crate, I would say don't confuse familiarity
| with liking it. In what evolutionary precept is crating a thing
| that ever had any parallel in the wild?
|
| 3. You talk to the dog, like it is a human that can't speak. You
| tell it what you are doing using consistent language. Example,
| when leaving the house, we tell the dogs what we are doing and
| how long we will be. eg I am taking J to school, I'll be back
| soon. Or, I am going to work. Very quickly they learn and know
| what to expect and anxiety is reduced. I can tell because if I
| say I'm going to work, they immediately head to their favourite
| long term day resting spots.if I say I am going to the shops,
| they know I will be 30-90 minutes and there is a chance I will be
| returning with treats and hang around the door. Also just a few
| times now and then, especially early on, the dog will come with
| me to, say, drop the child at school, or visit work, so they can
| see where we go and understand a little better what goes on.
|
| Having the dogs live with as part of the family means sometimes
| there are problems, eg our pup is currently teething and just
| can't help himself with items of certain texture. We keep
| important things out of reach, close bedroom doors when not home
| and use mistakes a chance to teach. The older dog has never once
| got into the bin or any other such misdemeanours when
| unsupervised at home.
|
| I see a lot of people ignore their dogs most of the time, I
| wouldn't expect such dogs to have strong language skills, but try
| might. If they are around and a wake, ours are constantly talked
| to, just telling them what we are doing or what is going on. They
| learn to associate, often quite quickly.
|
| Also many owners seem to make little effort for language
| consistency, outside of obedience commands like sit etc.
|
| Living in the house, it's important the dogs are consistently
| treated in accordance with their position in the pack. What many
| people think is being kind, is people kind and dog mean. A dog is
| happiest when it knows its place. The happiness is not related to
| the level of that place, more the consistency of treatment. A dog
| confused about its place might instinctively feel the need to
| challenge for leadership of the pack, that's when people get
| eaten.
|
| If your dog is looking stressed and uncertain of its place, by
| challenging you in little ways, you need to do the little things
| to reinforce its position eg it does not go thru the door before
| you, it does not eat before you. Maybe you eat and leave a very
| small amount if food on your plate, which you then give the
| dog.you admonish any challenge for control, not meanly, but
| firmly.grasping the muzzle with your hand, not hard, can be
| enough. When just weeks old, that is what the mother does with
| her mouth, it is a powerful gesture ingrained almost
| instinctively.
|
| Pampering a dog is being mean to a dog, treats should be earned
| not given randomly, that is just confusing.
|
| Just like people, dogs behave the way you treat them.
|
| I learned from an ex military dog trainer who went way further in
| his work training, but those were special animals trained to cope
| with crowds etc and in that environment might be called upon to
| save someone's life one day. But many of the techniques used
| would shock most people, but make perfect sense when considered
| in the context of training a pack animal to be a working animal.
| detourdog wrote:
| Interesting my dogs have had the same lifestyle. My current dog
| I'm sure is a genius but we let him be a dog. He has an amazing
| vocabulary and after watching a Nova show regarding dog
| language we performed similar tests on him and he was able to
| complete the tasks.
|
| He is a good boy.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| Wow, amazing rundown. I have a friend who is a dog trainer and
| she's explained a lot of these things to me before but you've
| made them click.
| everly wrote:
| While I fully agree with you that crating is to be avoided and
| I'd never do it - I _can_ see some evolutionary parallel. My
| husky loves to settle in corners /L-shapes, and a crate is not
| so different than a small cave/den which offers certainty that
| no predator can sneak up behind you.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I've always tied "orders" to a specific gesture, performed
| simultaneously, and I use a specific intonation, a "command
| voice." It comes from a different place in the chest, is lower,
| and is easier to precisely reproduce than my usual wittering
| on.
| kemayo wrote:
| The argument I've seen made for crating from an evolutionary-
| history perspective is that dogs are den animals -- they
| actively like having a small nook that they can feel safe in,
| where they're comfortable and nothing can sneak up on them.
|
| I have a crate for my dog. The door stays open all the time, it
| has a comfy mat on its floor, and sometimes he goes there to
| take a nap. He's only ever shut in it when there's a reason --
| a contractor in the house, or I need to keep the front door
| propped open for a while, or similar. (When he was a _puppy_ it
| was incredibly useful, though, because it was a way to teach
| him to settle down.)
| soperj wrote:
| They should breed them... I'm sure we could select for language
| geniuses.
| whatsakandr wrote:
| That's a new breed I could support. Just throw together a bunch
| of different breeds of smart dogs. They'll be much mror healthy
| than most breeds of dog.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| But creating any new breed, as in an actual breed rather than
| crossing mutts that will produce a variety of offspring,
| usually involved significant inbreeding. You need to weed out
| the genes that you don't want and concentrate on the few that
| define the breed in order to create a homogenous stock.
| Otherwise, in a couple generations the new offspring may pick
| start expressing the recessive genes and be nothing like the
| originals.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Afaik working breeds are the smartest and are already the
| most genetically diverse. Not sure if correlation or
| causation though.
| spike021 wrote:
| On the other hand, smart dogs can be much more difficult to
| train.
|
| They can easily pick up what you're training them to do, but
| when you want them to actually do it the results can be far
| more mixed. This is because they're so smart that they seem
| to know whether doing the thing they were trained to do is
| worth it to them.
|
| Source: I have a Shiba Inu, which is simultaneously one of
| the smartest and most primitive of dog breeds. From the
| beginning he picked up tricks and other training extremely
| quickly, usually within a handful of repetitions. But he can
| be very independent and stubborn. He seems to know whether
| something is worth doing or not. Almost.....too smart.
| cj wrote:
| > whether doing the thing they were trained to do is worth
| it to them.
|
| Also have a Shiba and 100% observe the same. I recently
| thought that he forgot certain commands, until I went on a
| trip and boarded him (which he hates), and the day I get
| back he's super excited and suddenly "remembers" how to do
| everything I thought he forgot how to do.
|
| Quirks like this is why I definitely don't recommend them
| as a first dog. They are great dogs but aren't the easiest
| breed to train.
| ozim wrote:
| Same with my dog, it is a mixed breed and intelligent
| enough to learn quickly, but also intelligent enough to
| have "you want me to sit, out of the blue? nah I don't
| care".
|
| So we had to build loads of trust with it. Now it trusts me
| and my partner that if we ask it to do stuff we mean it and
| there is some reason for the behavior like watch out for a
| stranger or other dog or it something interesting will
| follow.
| w0de0 wrote:
| The article suggests that we already have, as all of the found
| clever dogs are (at least part) a (formerly) working breed. One
| suspects nurture has a significant role, though, as it also
| does with human language development. Were we actually to
| pursue a program like this we'd need also and perhaps more
| importantly research dog pedagogy (skylogogy? dogagogy?).
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| hm, is it ethical to breed for sapience? It's interesting how
| literally building a new sapient being (i.e. AGI) _might_ be
| widely accepted and uncontroversial, yet the idea of
| selectively breeding dogs until they reach sapience feels wrong
| and yucky
| treflop wrote:
| I know I've seen videos of animals where I thought "damn, this
| one must be above the bell curve."
|
| And you know, there are individual humans vastly smarter than us
| so I figure there gotta be the same in the animal kingdom too.
| seunosewa wrote:
| And you can legally breed them.
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| Canadian author Spider Robinson had a cat that spontaneously
| used a tool. The cat selected a narrow wedge shaped piece from
| a woodpile, carried it to the other side of the house, jammed
| the small end into a door crack, and levered open a locked
| bathroom door.
| whatsakandr wrote:
| If you haven't seen "What About Bunny" on YouTube, I highly
| recommend it. The dog has learned to use buttons to communicate
| her thoughts quite effectively. My favorite is "Why bunny dog?"
| kelvie wrote:
| There's a massive sampling and confirmation bias with Bunny,
| though admittedly as a sheepdog owner the videos are very cute.
|
| Whenever I talk to e.g. coworkers about an impressive ML demo
| that was sped up and pre-recorded, I point to Bunny the dog to
| show how impressive a talking dog is.
| tigerlily wrote:
| Yes! And the one about the stranger in the paw (my memory is
| sketchy on the exact words). Mindblowing.
| cal85 wrote:
| I just watched a few videos and it's seems obvious it's all
| down to cherry picking and confirmation bias on the part of the
| owner. I've no doubt the owner believes the dog is deliberately
| constructing sentences, but that isn't what's happening.
| ksenzee wrote:
| There are some where I think you're right, and some where
| there is pretty clearly some genuine communication going on.
| You might want to watch a few more.
| araes wrote:
| The huskies Mishka and K'eyush have also been pretty popular
| over the last years. Videos of 10M+ upvotes, so obviously
| somebody's been watching. A lot are kind of painfully viewing
| owners poke their canines for likes, yet there are a few that
| are rather clear human language use such as Miska singing
| "Jingle Bells". Very obvious human word use and response to
| human communication for a task.
|
| Youtube, Mishka,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtDFxm4Wupo&t=84s
| leot wrote:
| It's unclear why the researchers believe that when a dog doesn't
| learn the names of a bunch of toys it means that they can't.
|
| There are lots of things people are able to learn today that they
| "couldn't" a few years ago (programming, math, reading). How are
| the researchers able to tell that the limitation lies with the
| dog and not with the trainer/household?
| swatcoder wrote:
| Indeed! The article talks about some kind of rare "genius"
| trait, but the findings just seem to demonstrate that there
| exists some dogs that were able to demonstrate a big vocabulary
| in their tests. Many people with dogs already knew that, but
| it's a sound finding to have citable anyway (especially since
| some people still hold weirdly dismissive beliefs about
| everyday animal intelligence).
|
| But it doesn't say anything _scientific_ about whether this is
| an inherent trait rather than a contextual outcome, what the
| frequency of any such trait might be, whether the dogs that
| failed the tests were incapable rather than indifferent, etc.
| Of course, the exact same pattern of ovverstatement shows up in
| human behavioral and psychological research, so we shouldn 't
| be surprised to see it here :)
| detourdog wrote:
| I agree just like any learning it involves engagement of some
| type>
| binarymax wrote:
| If a dog can learn 100 toys, then they can learn 52 cards, and
| maybe play some poker.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Memorizing 100 names for things might seem like a big deal, but I
| guarantee that _all_ dogs have memory for 100+ smells associated
| with things. They would call us stupid for not being able to
| remember the smell of more than a few dozen objects. My point:
| don 't judge intelligence based on how well an animal can
| replicate human behavior. Each of them can do things that make us
| look like the idiots.
| xeonmc wrote:
| What do you mean fish are not stupid for being unable to climb
| trees?
| newman8r wrote:
| Birds are able to do it as well, this popular bird on youtube
| seems to know at least that many words
| https://www.youtube.com/@ApolloandFrens
| nicklecompte wrote:
| It wasn't clear to me from this that these dogs had any special
| _cognitive_ abilities, as opposed to _neurosensory_ abilities,
| e.g. maybe most dogs can 't audibly distinguish human vowels
| and consonants well enough for this to work.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| I wonder this as well. In my experience, dogs have a MUCH
| easier time learning hand signals than learning verbal cues.
| I wonder if dogs would generally be capable of learning many
| more words if they were taught in sign language.
| rashkov wrote:
| I wonder if something like synesthesia could help them map
| language to smells
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| Who can't remember the smell of more than a few dozen objects?
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Yeah, and humans can identify different hops or chocolate or
| coffee beans by smell. We can't track very well but still
| have pretty sophisticated noses
| sandworm101 wrote:
| We remember scents. We remember how chocolate smells. We do
| not smell well enough to associate smell with a particular
| object. Then, in turn, our brains are not hardwired to
| associate specific smells to specific objects.
|
| Look at our memory for faces. It isn't all about eyesight.
| Our brains have specific circuitry for faces. Dogs have the
| same for smell. Sensitivity is one thing, how the brain is
| wired is another.
| robocat wrote:
| > Then, in turn, our brains are not hardwired to associate
| specific smells to specific objects.
|
| I think you are speculating cause.
|
| Culturally we tend not to communicate much about smells -
| it could just as easily be that most of us have the ability
| but it is never trained because it isn't much use to us.
|
| Anecdotally I know people with a wide range of different
| olfactory abilities.
|
| It is interesting to try and think of how we could test for
| the ability. Perhaps not testing for my pencil, but
| something else - a child - a dog - shoes - urine.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| > They would call us stupid for not being able to remember the
| smell of more than a few dozen objects.
|
| Dogs obviously have incredibly more advanced olfactory systems
| but I feel like you're downplaying humans here. I'm pretty sure
| there's hundreds of very specific smells I could identify
| pretty well. Smell of home, pencil rubbers, chalk clouds,
| rotten bananas, denim.. things do have quite specific smells
| and there's a lot of things.
| BytesAndGears wrote:
| Plus the whole feeling of "I just smelled this thing and it
| reminds me of my aunt's house, who died 35 years ago".
|
| I think it's pretty established that humans are _very_ good
| with smell. We just aren't very sensitive compared to dogs
| aqfamnzc wrote:
| I recently started swimming for fitness after not doing so
| since 10 years ago in high school. I get a rush of
| nostalgia and a good feeling whenever I catch a whiff of
| chlorine on my hands or hair throughout the day.
| tapland wrote:
| Just yesterday i experienced the smell that was just like the
| apples from a tree in our yard 25 years ago. There are easily
| many hundreds of unique smells we can identify.
| thfuran wrote:
| The ability to remember specific sensory impressions just is
| not the same thing as sensory acuity. People can remember a
| bunch of things, but our noses aren't nearly as sensitive as
| dogs'.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> I could identify pretty well. Smell of home, pencil
| rubbers, chalk clouds, rotten bananas, denim.. things do have
| quite specific smells
|
| Those are classes of things, not specific objects. We all
| know the smell of erasers, but can we identify the smell of a
| specific eraser? Part of it is sensitivity but it is also
| largely that our brains are not designed to associate smells
| with individual objects. Think of how we handle faces, which
| we can spot even if at a different orientation than we have
| seen before. Or how we can hear a specific voice amongst a
| crowd. Dogs do that with scent profiles.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| This is a really good way to frame it that would indeed
| mean we only remember dozens of individual things, if that.
| The smell of home remains, as well as the smells of close
| relatives.. but I can't think of much else.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| Not sure how to word this without getting too weird, but
| It's certainly possible to identify well over a dozen
| people by smell alone -- not just friends/family that one
| spends a lot of time with, but also attractive people.
| ghshephard wrote:
| This was an interesting article:
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/you-actually-s...
|
| "According to McGann, our olfactory inferiority is nothing but
| a 150-year-old myth born of erroneous assumptions and faulty
| science."
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Why do we have K9 search and rescue dogs and drug sniffers
| instead of just having police officers sniffing everyone's
| luggage?
|
| The answer from the article is, essentially, because dogs are
| much better at odor detection than us. It weirdly seems to
| say because we have the ability to sense odors we are better
| than we think we are, which implies we think we can't smell
| at all or something. But dogs are much much better than us.
| ghshephard wrote:
| The article made a quite different argument than "dogs are
| much better at odor detection than us" - that is contrary
| to what the research shows. Humans have much better ability
| to smell some things than dogs do, but, dogs are (as you
| noted) capable of smelling some things better than humans.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| They make some squinty suppositions from some limited
| studies that suggest dogs (which can smell cannabis
| flowers) can't smell flowers better humans etc. But then
| they conclude with this statement that sort of refutes
| the entire premise:
|
| """ Besides having more olfactory receptor cells than
| humans, dogs also boast a specialized snout adapted to
| methods of breathing that deliver a steadier stream of
| information-rich scent. Dogs and some other animals even
| experience scent differently. Their olfactory system
| allows them to smell liquid phase chemicals that aren't
| airborne--think of layers of urine and other liquids on
| your neighborhood fire hydrant--by working like a pump to
| deliver them to a specialized nasal organ. """
|
| Which is pretty indicative that as everyone knows from
| daily experience with dogs, dogs are better at smelling
| things than humans. There may be a range over which that
| superiority falters at some chemicals but I saw nothing
| other than headlines and pop science supposition that
| indicates humans are superior at smelling than dogs.
| samatman wrote:
| While it is of course true that humans can smell less acutely
| than dogs, I'm fairly confident that the number of odors I can
| remember is somewhere in the low thousands.
| araes wrote:
| A quick search to WP Dog Intelligence [1] will quickly note
| that there have been cases of 1,000 words and this is actually
| fairly well known. It's perhaps interesting that researches are
| confirming anecdotal reports online, although as noted in
| another comment below, there are 10M+ videos from multiple
| channels all on the same subject. I donno, it's like humans are
| just realizing animals might not be that less intelligent.
| Parrots ask existential questions. Prior research on dog
| language:
|
| "2008, Betsy, a Border Collie, knew over 345 words by the
| retrieval test, and she was also able to connect an object with
| a photographic image of the object, despite having seen neither
| before."
|
| (mentioned in article) "Rico initially knew the labels of over
| 200 items [and] inferred the names of novel items by exclusion"
|
| "2013, a Border Collie, "Chaser", who had learned the names and
| could associate by verbal command over 1,000 words[...], and
| [was] capable of linking nouns to verbs"
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_intelligence#Learning_and_...
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I've seen a few videos on YouTube of cats trained on these push-
| down language buttons, mounted in a hexagonal pattern, on a mat
| laying on the floor. The cats press a button and the button plays
| back a word which the owner has recorded.
|
| I'd like to see more testing out of it but the cats seem to be
| rather expressive. They pick the same button, so at least they
| are consistent in their wants. They have a few verbs in the mix,
| it seems, not just nouns.
|
| I wonder how dogs would do on these buttons.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| You should check out Bunny the dog on Youtube / Tiktok.
| gs17 wrote:
| I've watched a few in the past and I'm not convinced the more
| complex interactions are "real" language use instead of operant
| conditioning combined with confirmation bias. Too many of the
| videos will have button sequences that seem random get assigned
| a meaning, and even non-request button presses will get
| attention.
|
| Buttons for "food", "water", "pet me", "play with me",
| "outside" almost definitely work. Before I lived with a cat
| again, I was skeptical of those as "well, duh, any of those
| buttons get a reward, they don't care what it is", but our cats
| ask for those specific things without buttons.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I've been on the lookout for that, but I was struck by some
| particular "conversations" that involved re-direction.
| "Sorry" "How about something else" "Mommy - Sick" and so on.
| There was some back and forth there that I could not quite
| discount.
| deathanatos wrote:
| I know a dog that, if you've not paid attention to her water
| bowl and it's empty, and she wants water, will simply paw the
| rim of the bowl to cause it to overturn, which makes a loud
| clatter on the hard floor.
|
| Once she then has your attention, she'll give you a look, as
| if it say "water, let's go."
|
| I dare say she trained _us_ -- after all, we didn 't teach
| her to do that. And sure, it's simple ... but she's still
| purposefully communicating a desire/intent.
|
| (She's a good girl, too.)
| antisthenes wrote:
| Knowing what we know about the variability within species, why
| would anyone NOT think that there is immense variations in
| intelligence in other mammalian species?
|
| Especially a species that we've been selectively breeding for
| specific traits, some of which include independence and the
| ability to problem-solve?
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| I surprised that poodles were called out as a less obvious smart
| dog.
|
| My dog learned on her own that me holding keys + wearing glasses
| = car ride, while keys + no glasses = walk. It took _me_ a while
| to learn how she knew what we were going to do.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Curious how you determined what she had determined.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| For mine, when I have my keys he runs right to the car.
| Without them, he'll run past to the sidewalk. If I grab my
| keys and laptop (to go to work) he'll walk away and lay down.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| She hates car rides, so she'd run and hide when she saw me
| with glasses on. I finally clued in the day I forgot to put
| my glasses on before going to the car, and she was happy to
| go outside.
| knodi123 wrote:
| My dog recognizes different cars by their noise profile. So
| he'll wake up from a nap and get excited whenever my wife pulls
| onto our street, but stay down for any other car.
|
| It probably helps that we're the only prius on the block, but
| still impressive!
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Oh yeah, had some dogs like that when I was a teenager. They
| could recognize my Firebird from a few blocks away. :-)
| alamortsubite wrote:
| Our last cat did this, too (though in our case the car was a
| Mazda 3). It took me a while to realize what was going on.
| LandR wrote:
| My parents dog knows where she is going in the car. On the
| way to the beach where she goes for her runs there are 3
| rumble strips on the road, she always starts getting excited
| as soon as the car goes over them. Even though she's probably
| still 6-8 miles from beach!
|
| They also take her to a local pub that is dog friendly and
| she has friends there. She knows when she is going there as
| she starts getting excited when the car turns right at a
| certain roundabout. Go left or straight on, nothing, but turn
| right and she's right up all excited!
| RussianCow wrote:
| My dog is like this. She knows (without looking out the
| window) when we are close to home or some other exciting
| places, and I can only imagine that she has memorized the
| turns we take to get to those destinations. It blows my
| mind because there are no obvious indications, and I highly
| doubt I would pick up on them if blindfolded in the car.
| lostlogin wrote:
| EVs have a high pitched whine and our dog can hear the car
| from a long way out.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Yep, mine does too. Their hearing is amazing.
| ta8645 wrote:
| I heard about a test someone did, after wondering how their
| dog was always standing in the window at the end of each
| workday, anticipating their owners arrival home. After
| casting about, a theory was developed that the dog "smelled
| time". That is, as the day wore on, the scent of their owner,
| decreased in the air; at a low-enough concentration, the dog
| knew it was about time for the front door to open and their
| owner to arrive home.
|
| To prove the theory, someone went to the owner's work at
| noon-time, and gave him a new shirt, collecting the one he'd
| been wearing for half a day. They took that worn shirt, and
| swirled it through the air back at the house; recharging the
| owner's scent in the air. The dog was asleep and away from
| the front door, and surprised when its owner arrived home at
| the normal time.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Certainly interesting enough to do another test, but
| instead without another human entering the house.
|
| Maybe a sealed box that opens to vent the scent. You'd need
| to have the same box do the same, with no scent too.
| drcongo wrote:
| I love this kind of cause and effect linking that dogs do -
| mine has noticed that I often go in the downstairs restroom
| before walkies and now I regularly find her sitting expectantly
| on the bottom of the stairs when I come out. She only seems to
| be able to remember about 4 words though.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| It's a bit weird, but I think our animals spend far more time
| observing us than we realize.
| tlavoie wrote:
| Our dogs are also also very good at picking up other cues. Not
| only can we not say "walk," but the "well..." as in, "well,
| time to take the dogs" gets the same reaction now.
|
| Our SPCA-special (shepherd / husky / other?) learned after
| _one_ event that the tub running with the bathroom door open
| means that it's bath-time, and time to head out through the pet
| flap to the safety of the outdoors.
| bentcorner wrote:
| This is not a difficult task but my dog absolutely recognizes
| the various ways I end meetings during work or discord chats
| while gaming and always starts bothering me for pets when I'm
| done.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| My first dog was a 3/4 poodle 1/4 cocker spaniel. She knew
| where the car was going; anticipated events from objects
| including leashes, combs, toys, and food; and deduced ever
| changing codewords for activities before moving a muscle.
| galenlynch wrote:
| I interpreted that sentence to mean poodles were a less obvious
| working dog:
|
| "Yet almost all gifted word learners are working breeds. Those
| include the obvious breeds such as ... but also less obvious
| ones such as poodles"
| genman wrote:
| Our dog is not particularly smart but once we counted that she
| knows at least about 20 words, one of those being "cat", so we
| use "that furry animal" instead when we talk to not agitate her
| for no reason.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| I adopted an Australian Shepherd from a friend a year ago and I'm
| absolutely blown away by how smart he is. He even knows the
| neighbor dogs' names. I can say "go get spot!" and he'll run
| after the right dog. He knows all my family members names. He
| knows that "you've arrived" on Google maps means we are there. He
| knows that "power on" coming from my Bluetooth headphones means
| we are going for a walk. He gets the concept for new tricks in
| about a half hour. I do have to practice them daily, but he gets
| the gist almost immediately.
|
| I knew Aussies were smart and I'm not sure where he is on the
| bell curve, but yeah, some dogs really have a knack for language.
| sophacles wrote:
| A good friend of mine had an Aussie who was really smart. My
| friend was a dog trainer, and she once told me "the secret is
| Grace (the dog) does most of it - the puppies learn better by
| watching her demonstrate, and she keeps them in line".
|
| One day a mutual friend of ours died in a car wreck. I went to
| see my friend and we were sitting there telling stories and
| grieving... Grace read the room and brought my friend her
| favorite movie on dvd - something she watched when she was
| feeling blue. Grace wasn't quite sure what to do for me, but
| she brought me the cup I usually drank from when I was
| visiting.
|
| I don't know how much of that to attribute to smarts, training,
| and/or natural empathy, but that was an impressive dog, and its
| an impressive breed for sure!
| bongodongobob wrote:
| I believe it. Apparently that's how herding dogs train on
| farms. You just buy a puppy and it literally shadows the
| adult. They train themselves.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| I have two koolies (an Australian herding breed that is
| very closely related to Australian shepherds, border
| collies, and kelpies). I got my older dog during the
| lockdowns when I had a lot of free time to train him, and I
| got my younger dog a couple years later, when I had much
| less time to train her.
|
| The younger one has taught herself almost everything the
| older one knows, mostly by observing him, but sometimes by
| him actively trying to teach her. When she doesn't know
| something, he shows obvious signs of frustration and
| urging: I give a command, he does the thing I'm asking for,
| she doesn't react because she doesn't know the command, and
| then he starts growling and harumphing (and sometimes even
| air snaps near her face to get her attention) until she
| follows his lead.
| spike021 wrote:
| I have a Shiba Inu and he's very much the same. If I say "look
| there's your friend Bella!" He goes nuts because that's his
| favorite friend to play with. He can even recognize the sound
| of their owner from multiple apartment buildings away. Not
| kidding at all. He'll go frantic begging to go outside and as
| soon as we're out he'll perk his ears, figure out the direction
| to go, and take off. And then after five or so mins heading
| that way he finds his best bud.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Cool! Mine can hear my neighbors garage door open when they
| get home from work and goes nuts because his bestie is about
| to be let outside. Took me a while to figure that one out,
| haha. "How the hell are you predicting when the neighbors dog
| gets let out??"
| cj wrote:
| My Shiba has learned the days of the week. I have a family
| member that visits every Thursday, and he sits by the door
| waiting for them (only on Thursdays).
|
| And god forbid I work a weekend or do something off schedule,
| he gets stressed out thinking something is wrong.
|
| I often joke he would be a more normal dog if he had a
| lobotomy. Sometimes I wish he were a bit dumber :)
| legohead wrote:
| I had a dumb labrador that was hard to train. Now I have a
| kokoni who knows 20 commands & words, and she is super easy to
| train. We haven't tried to test the limit of her abilities, we
| just ran out of things to teach her (that we cared about, at
| least). She never cared for toys though.
|
| I noticed while teaching her to "speak" that she would sneeze a
| lot, I guess it's kind of a reflex for her when she tries to
| speak. So I wondered, can I teach a dog to sneeze? And sure
| enough, after a bit of training, she will now sneeze on
| command.
| user_7832 wrote:
| > she would sneeze a lot
|
| Btw dogs often do this to indicate they're playing/mean no
| harm :)
| qup wrote:
| She sounds like my dog, who has sneezing fits a lot. The
| shelter said she was a shepherd/boxer mix when I adopted her,
| but I believe she's a mountain cur.
|
| Either way, she's wonderful, and learned every trick I taught
| her in the first couple of months. She still knows them all 9
| years later. She's learned a lot about me without my
| instruction, we just fit like a glove.
|
| I don't have an exact count, but she knows at least 30
| commands (some are for the same thing, like "wait for me" and
| "slow down"). I use natural language. I'm not sure how many
| other things she's picked up. I always tell her "be right
| back" if it's true, but I'm not sure if she understands it or
| not, because she's not an anxious dog.
|
| She's never been that interested in food or toys. She's a
| farm dog. The best.
|
| I wish they'd speed up that research on dog longevity. She's
| 9.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > who has sneezing fits a lot
|
| Sneezing is a way dogs say they want to play. That's
| adorable that she loves sneezing for you. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/health-and-dog-
| care/health/...
| deergomoo wrote:
| My dog occasionally forgets our house has an upstairs. He's
| still a good boy though.
| RussianCow wrote:
| Nice to meet you, fellow labrador owner!
| cush wrote:
| I did this with my Aussie as well. I'd hide all of her toys
| throughout the house then instruct her "go get your hamburger!"
| and in a few minutes, she'd come back with her hamburger. It
| was wild that she'd remember what toy she was looking for
| during that time. More impressive still, was she would be able
| to learn new toy names through inference. I'd come home with a
| new toy turtle, hide all her toys, say "go get your Turtle!",
| and she'd come back with the new toy. And from then on she'd
| know which one was Turtle. She had an insatiable appetite for
| training and learning!
| sokoloff wrote:
| We got our 3/4 poodle mix during Covid and remote work.
|
| To this day, he strongly associates me putting on jeans with
| "we're about to go for a walk" (which isn't entirely wrong, for
| sure).
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Our shetland sheepdog as kids was super smart (and funny as a
| consequence) in this huge vocabulary way too. Our current feral
| ancestry central american dog (dna tests call them village
| dogs, meaning not of a breeder created subset of the gene pool)
| is scary smart too. She's probably got a HN account come to
| think of it.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| I've always thought my Grandmother's dog was a genius. It wasn't
| that the dog knew a lot of things - it was house trained of
| course, it would sit, fetch, heel and the biggest trouble I ever
| remember it getting into was scratching the bottom of door.
|
| That said I swear it figured out all of that stuff on its own
| because I'm pretty no one in the house invested 5 minutes trying
| to train that dog to do anything. I honestly think it just wanted
| to be a good dog. I would almost say the dog was mistreated
| because benign neglect is almost cruel to a dog but it wasn't
| that bad, the dog wasn't ignored, it just didn't get a chance to
| really shine.
|
| Poor muffin.
| a_gnostic wrote:
| My buddy swears his one year old kitten understands how to turn
| on the A/C, but lacks the opposable thumbs to do it effectively.
| paulpauper wrote:
| is it actual learning or a Clever Hans effect or other operant
| conditioning.
| gs17 wrote:
| They attempted to reject a Clever Hans effect.
|
| >To minimize potential inadvertent cues from the owner, the
| instructions required the owners to place the dog's toys in a
| different room. Owners were instructed to ask for each of the
| toys while ensuring that at least three toys were available for
| the dog to choose from.
|
| For the test they had a camera in the room with the owner and
| another in the room with the toys (so the owner couldn't cheat
| by removing the other toys).
| oooyay wrote:
| My greyhound/pit mix knows my names of many of her toys. She also
| has a range of expressions she uses to disagree with me or tell
| me I'm wrong.
|
| Her favorite toy is this kevlar llama unicorn that my mother has
| resewn for her twice. If I tell her to bring me her lobster (also
| kevlar) sometimes she'll shake her head, bow, and then stare
| intently at me. She understands the prompt for, "What is it?" and
| will lead me to the thing she wants or fetch it. On multiple
| occasions she's brought me her llama instead. I thought this was
| a fluke for a while but if I argue with her enough she'll go get
| her lobster. She has a really big toy bin and she plays with _a
| lot_ of toys, so selecting these two by name has always been
| curious.
|
| She also has toys for different purposes. The remnants of a Lamb
| Chop long lost are her snuggle toy, she doesn't play tug of war
| with it anymore. If you try to she'll display the same expression
| for dissatisfaction.
| gottorf wrote:
| She must get it from the greyhound. My pit shows occasional
| flashes of intelligence, but I think she's too anxious to
| behave smartly almost all the time...
| goles wrote:
| https://archive.is/E8PKp
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| I spend lot of time watching birds, and they are really having
| complex conversations, definitely more than 100 "words" too. And
| we can say the same about ants, (it's more chemical/touch
| communication). Basically all animals are smart
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| The amazing thing to me about dogs is the tremendous range of
| variability we have bred into them. Size, shape, color,
| intelligence, basic body makeup, senses, hunting instincts, even
| average life span vary by an astonishing amount.
|
| And sadly, of course, the selective breeding has also caused
| systematic weaknesses in some breeds (prone to bad hips, knee
| injuries, relatively short life span, etc).
|
| The genie is out of the bottle but I wish we could breed
| healthier animals.
| llamaLord wrote:
| Just a quick note on this, it's not entirely appropriate to
| blame selective breeding "in general" for those issues. Quite
| often those issues come from specific selective breeding
| practises designed to make the dogs more "fashionable" by
| breeding specific aesthetic attributes over healthy dogs.
|
| That being said, there is an enormous community of extremely
| passionate breeders around the world who are absolutely
| dedicated to breeding HEALTHIER dogs, especially in breeds that
| are known to have issues due to poor breeding.
|
| We have a Boston Terrier we got from one such breeder after
| spending over two years looking for someone we trusted to do
| the process right, and we are so happy we did. Not only do we
| have an amazing pet, but we know we are activity contributing
| to the process of improving the overall health of the breed,
| even though it did cost us more to do.
|
| A few things to look for in order to pick a "good" breeder.
|
| 1. How many litters do each of their female dogs have over
| their lives. If a breeder is expecting them to produce more
| than two (three at the most) litters, that's a red flag.
|
| 2. Do the mums deliver naturally, or via C-section. We only
| learned through extensive research that some breeds (often
| including Boston's) almost all have to give birth via C-section
| because they've been so extremely bread. We specifically looked
| for a breeder who's dogs a born naturally. If the pups are so
| extreme in your they've been bread that the mum can't get them
| out naturally... Something has gone too far.
|
| 3. Is the breeder a "purist" when it comes to the breed. Now
| this is going to be the opposite of what most people expect,
| but you WANT a breeder who is 1930's levels eugenicist when it
| comes to their breed. Fundamentally, most of the issues from
| breeding come about through mongrelisation of the breed. Low
| quality breeders cross-breed dogs to introduce "cool" or
| "fashionable" new traits, without caring about the million
| other genetic inconsistencies they're bringing into the mix at
| the same time.
|
| A great example is with Boston Terriers we learned. The breed
| spec for them is VERY clear, they have a white base coat with a
| black or extremely dark brown "tuxedo" style coat covering
| their lower body and a portion of their front-legs.
|
| ANYTHING that has colours other than those three, is a cross-
| breed for fashion purposes. There is no such thing as an
| "albino Boston", or a "patterned Boston" etc etc, these are
| marketing names people came up with for mongrelised versions of
| the breed which will almost always have major health issues.
| br3d wrote:
| I think what's way more interesting is that dogs can master class
| inclusion: they can understand that _this_ toy is "Mr Shakey"
| and _this_ toy is "Elephant" but they can also understand that
| there is a superordinate category of "toys" that includes both Mr
| Shakey and Elephant, and when asked "Go and get me a toy" can
| choose either. This is mind-blowing, as children normally have to
| reach 7 or 8 before they have a solid grasp of class inclusion
| [0]
|
| 0
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/1129264#:~:text=showing%20relat....
| grimgrin wrote:
| I did not know what class inclusion was, but now I'm thinking
| it's more complex than that? After a little bit of reading.
| "all daisies are flowers" and not "all flowers are daisies",
| this example seems more like the "solid grasp" you're referring
| to. And not basic categorization that a 3 year old might have:
| "foods", "toys"
| br3d wrote:
| Hmm, I'm now struggling to remember basic developmental
| psych, but there's definitely a phase at which linguistic
| children struggle with things having two names (it can't be
| both "dog" and "Rex") but I think you're right - this
| phenomenon is subtly different to class inclusion. But either
| way, dogs can do something with language comprehension that
| speaking children can't, which is the bit I find really
| interesting
| AeroNotix wrote:
| I need to read up more on this because in my extremely
| small sample size this kind of dual naming understanding
| came in really early with my daughter.
|
| I feel like it's a linguistic subtlety that us adults are
| struggling with conveying the exact concept.
| wosk wrote:
| I did not read the paper, so I cannot comment on the "solid
| grasp of class inclusion", but regarding the capacity that you
| described in your comment, I have a 2-year-old and it's been a
| long while since she has mastered this (book vs this book, toy
| vs toy, fruit vs an apple and so on). As far as I know, most
| two year old have already acquired this concept.
|
| (EDIT I see the other comment says something similar and you
| have replied)
| AeroNotix wrote:
| I didn't even know "class inclusion" was a thing really.
| Though obviously the concept makes sense.
|
| My daughter had a solid grasp of it definitely around 16-18
| months. She could easily talk about books or toys, cars,
| food, drinks etc.
|
| Not sure if this is unusual but 7-8 as the other poster
| mentioned sounds crazy late for that kind of conceptual
| understanding to appear.
| thebeardisred wrote:
| I'm a little disappointed that there is not a single mention of
| Psychologist John W. Pilley
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Pilley) nor Chaser the
| Border Collie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaser_(dog)).
| Pilley did an extensive amount of work including teaching Chaser
| over 1000 nouns. This was repeatedly verified in trials.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGlUZWNjxPA
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/science/chaser-border-col...
|
| https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/news/remembering-chaser-th...
|
| edit: Added another link to the AKC article on Chaser.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > a little disappointed
|
| that's putting it mildly. It's hard to believe SciAm could even
| publish this.
|
| Neil deGrasse Tyson went on TV with Chaser and his owner. He
| tested Chaser by putting an unnamed toy in the pile, and then
| said "go get Darwin." ("Darwin" being an unused name)
|
| Chaser successfully figured out it must be the toy whose name
| he didn't know.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| While Ernie is certainly smart, I've found one gap in his IQ:
|
| He has some favorite houses because the person who lives there
| gives him treats. Several times, we'll see that person on the
| street and then pass their house, and Ernie still gets excited.
|
| I tell him, "Ernie, we just saw Jan. She can't possibly be in the
| house."
|
| He never listens.
| iskander wrote:
| My dog seems to know least the names of 6 family members, 4
| friends, and names of ~6-7 other dogs (in that she can go to
| those individuals on command). She also knows: cat, dog, cow,
| horse, friend, hello, "dai lapu" (Russian for give me your paw),
| "sidi" (Russian for sit), sneak, "bang" (for playing dead),
| dinner, breakfast, bath, outside, "go potties", and probably
| quite a few other snippets of English.
|
| She also knows how to open windows in a car and looks for the
| buttons before pressing them with her paw.
| ggm wrote:
| Olaf Stapleton "Sirius"
| fionaellie wrote:
| How can I teach my dog the names of her toys?
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Clicker training
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Everybody thinks their dog and/or child is a genius. But I've had
| a lot of dogs. Even within the same litter, some are bright, and
| some are dumber than a box of hammers. If your dog is smart,
| that's great, but your next one of the same breed might not be.
| Some individual dogs also don't take well to training, while
| others do. It's way more about the individual than the breed.
| motohagiography wrote:
| If dogs are smarter than we knew, what are some additional tasks
| we could give them?
|
| I have manuals for disability support dog training (opening
| doors, getting medications, helping to dress, etc) but maybe we
| could teach them to: - clean or arrange rooms or outdoor spaces
|
| - find and pile firewood
|
| - collect litter
|
| - convey messages to named people
|
| What else?
| doubled112 wrote:
| There's something very human about "hey, this thing is smart,
| better put it to work for us"
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