Sometimes, I’m blown away by the intelligence of dogs. I’ll watch any show about dogs, and consistently, the average dog has more emotional intelligence than most humans. Some dogs know how to use tools, and dogs know how to figure out engineering issues, they have strong sense memories, and they have some long-ass memories. But over the past month, there’s been a move by “scientists” to discredit all the good boys and good girls. These academics are getting paid by Big Cat (or possibly Big Fish) to try to convince people that their dogs are not really that smart. These “scientists” are punks.
Your dog may not be a genius, after all. A new study finds that canines are not exceptional in the animal world. https://t.co/DBafJwUGgP pic.twitter.com/l0yPvojPQJ
— Scientific American (@sciam) November 27, 2018
The argument these (fake) scientists are making is that “There is no current case for canine exceptionalism,” and that dogs are, intelligence-wise, “quite ordinary when compared to other carnivores, domestic animals, and social hunters.” So dogs are “ordinary” when compared to another domesticated animal… like, a cat? Cats are geniuses, granted. But I also think dogs are geniuses. What two animal groups have convinced their overlords to feed them, walk them, cuddle with them, get them medicine, and allow them to run the house? Also: why are these dumb scientists being paid to “study” this sh-t? YOUR DOG IS A GENIUS, CASE CLOSED.
The comments were funny though:
I bet you’re not a genius either, study guy. pic.twitter.com/XnrCNfcAFP
— suzy emerson (@suzyemerson) November 27, 2018
The authors pic.twitter.com/IViEDQnzI9
— CJ (@pnwrunnerlass) November 27, 2018
*blocked and reported* pic.twitter.com/zN1t51eWBh
— Nicola Calder (@NicolaCalder7) November 27, 2018
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid.
Who cares
Dogs significantly increase quality of life!!!
🙂
The new Dogs documentary on netflix is awesome!!
I care because my pup outsmarts me all the time, and my only excuse is she’s genius. 😏
I kinda love these “studies” because the twitter response is so epic.
https://twitter.com/jackdolanlat/status/1067524209268547584?s=21
https://twitter.com/adamryan/status/1067522525586849792?s=21
https://twitter.com/kidblue/status/1067522171143114752?s=21
https://twitter.com/keitholbermann/status/1067526235255988227?s=21
LOL at the $80 for allergy meds.
I just picked up my dog’s heart meds for $50. I then spent ten minutes carefully cutting each one in half. And then, in order to give her the pill, I make a little “meatball” out of a pill pocket, but the meatball has to be the right size or she doesn’t take it. And when that happens I APOLOGIZE OUT LOUD to my dog for not getting it right.
I love it. The things we do for our dogs seem insane sometimes. Yesterday my dog literally ran into my fist as I taking off my boot and I almost cried I felt so bad.
Oh Jenns, too funny. Get the meatball size right or else…your dog will still love you no matter what. And that’s exactly why they are light years ahead of humans.
Dogs and cats are like people. Some are smart, some are dumb. I have had both.
My cat is so dumb that I sometimes wonder if he’s actually a genius, pretending to be stupid, to get everything handed to him.
Yup! There’s something so wonderful (and easy) about a dumb dog though. I love them – our pointer is not a genius, but she’s smart enough to get herself into a good deal of trouble.
I watched our three and a half month old kitten open a drawer yesterday and use it to climb onto the vanity counter easier. It was terrifying. She also has a tendency to collect objects from around the house (things that I have no idea what they belong to) and bring them to me while I sleep. I got up in the night for water, came back to bed, and laid on a hinge. Found a screw in the morning. She’s going to be a great, fluffy overlord.
One of my cats does this as well! she opens all the drawers in our kitchen and bedroom and then the older cats climb in a fall asleep and we are left trying to figure out which drawer they are in so we can extract them. They think this is a fun game. One of our kitties can also open door latches. I wish my cats were a bit dumber sometimes
Oh, you two are scaring me!
We recently found a stray cat with five kittens on our back porch and brought them in. We adopted two kittens out and were looking around for someone to take a third when we…kind of fell in love with her, too. So now we have three kittens. Three at once. Plus our dog. Yeah…we’re not that bright ourselves, clearly.
So far I’ve seen no evil genius behavior but I’m going to be on the lookout for it now.
LOL. I was just gonna say the same thing.
What quantifies “genius” anyway? There are people that are “book smart” but have no common sense. So my jack russell will never conquer calculus. Guess what? Neither will I. But he does understand most of what I say, has a great memory, obeys my commands, is fiercely loyal, and will die trying to protect me. That’s better than most men in my experience.
The truth is there isn’t really a single measurable factor intelligence. Intelligence is much more complex than the ability to successfully complete a battery of tests that are biased in many ways. Also, some of the most “intelligent” people can have the poorest life management skills. That’s why Daniel Golman developed his Emotional Intelligence theory. Even before Golman, Howard Gardner introduced his theory of multiple intelligences, citing differences among people in processing information.
I admit that our golden retriever was a lovable, loving airhead. However, our beagle was one of the most intelligent mammals who ever drew breath, far smarter than those punk scientists who wrote that study.
My Rottweiler is….not a genius. Gorgeous, loving, kissy, yes. Not a genius.
My Aussie, on the other hand, is a freakin Rhodes Scholar.
Same with my rotten.
Our shepherd was like your Aussie…too smart for her own good
My Aussie, Blue, is brilliant. They’re amazing dogs, and so loving. Knows every command by 6 months, he’s so protective that he backs into me if he senses the slightest threat and growls so that he’s the one facing it head on.
He cries if the kids yell at each other and hugs them. The best creatures on the planet.
I’m the opposite. I full acknowledge all of my pets to be morons. It makes things much easier.
To quote Charlie Kelly from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: “Stupid science b-tches can’t even make I more smarter”
My bichon frisé was smart about some things, incredibly stupid about others. For example, on long road trips, he ALWAYS knew when we got off the highway. I never knew how he quite figured it out but he would pass out and snooze for most of the car ride but as soon as the car would get off the exit ramp and slow down, he’d perk up and start being more active and excited because from past experience he knew we were getting close to our destination. He also hated being at my grandparents house because we had left him there enough times when we went on long trips that he associated their house with being left behind. Obviously he was not smart enough to understand we wouldn’t leave him there every single time we’d go. Even if we were just going for a short visit and brought him along, he’d start whining as soon as we got there and wouldn’t quit until we left.
However this dog also almost died from ingesting carpet fibers, chased every single squirrel/deer/wild turkey that was in in our yard, almost drowned as a puppy in a rushing stream, was sprayed twice by a skunk, ate mice poison, ate all my sister’s Lactaid pills, ate chocolate several times, the list goes on! Miss his little face every day.
Aw. My Bichon helps me round up the cat when I need to get hold of her. I’ll say, “Find Rosie,” and he’ll flush her out of wherever she’s hiding. If the cat gets me circling around the kitchen table I’ll say, “Get Rosie,” and he automatically approaches her from the opposite direction from the one I’m taking. I think he’s pretty smart for a dog bred to be a pet. Plus he’s the sweetest ever!
That is just common dog behaviour: dogs were once bred to be man’s hunting companions. All shepherd dogs are very good at that stuff, too.
Also wolves are known to apply strategies when hunting.
We’re just sharing dog stories, you don’t need to be a wet blanket. Did you miss the “bred to be a pet” part? I’m simply surprised he retained any instincts at all, since we isn’t exactly train him to do these things.
Bichons are not known for their hunting instincts so I’m surprised your bichon helped you hunt down your cat! What a useful skill! Mine was more obsessed with playing fetch (and bichons are not exactly known for their amazing fetch skills). I am not exaggerating when I say he was OCD about fetch! He constantly had a tennis ball in his mouth and he would throw it to us in the house, getting it stuck under furniture and harassing us when we were watching TV by offering it to us on the couch. Sometimes I wondered if he had gotten smart enough to “accidentally” place the ball under the couch which would cause him to whine until someone came and got it out for him, forcing us to touch the ball and then play with him.
Well, maybe it’s because I’m not really a dog person, but I believe it. Cats are crazy smart. I don’t believe that dogs are. Sorry to upset anyone! Let’s agree to disagree!
Dogs are smarter than cats. Fact.
Yeah… I’ve never seen a cat as a service animal for blind or disabled people. Or seen dogs in airports to sniff out bombs and drugs. They can’t be trained to do that. Ha.
@Christina. Yup, I agree. I love my smarty pants puggo. 🐾
@Amelie : Id say thats because cats generally dont give a F. Not because they’re dumb.
Nope, nope, my dog is an Aussie and he’s brilliant.
Aussie love!!
I’ve had both amazingly stupid pets and totally brilliant pets. Of both the dog and cat world.
My most stupid was a cat, Yum yum flower.
Cats drool when they are happy, this cat would lay there and constantly drool, so much she’d always be in a puddle and have moist fur and smell. She was a BEAUTIFUL long haired tortise shell. Loved me sooooooooooo much. Was so stupid I worried she’d drown in her happy puddle. And moist.
She was such a good girl.
Drooling means happiness? My neighbor’s cat was super shy but warmed to me and would drool on me all the time. Glad she was happy :).
Um, excuse me, my dog can SPELL. (One word. He can spell one word. It’s “out”- we used to spell out O-U-T because he’d take off running every time it was time to put him outside before he went to bed, and then he learned that too 😀 :D) Admittedly, he has also been known to frequently behave like he actually doesn’t have a single brain cell in his head, but again- he can SPELL. Who are these fibbers to tell me he’s not, like, ready for the dog version of Mensa?!
That gray dog they used for in their tweet looks just like my Schnoodle, and my Schnoodle is very smart! He knows all the names of his toys. I tell him to get the zebra, he gets the zebra. I tell him to get Mr. Ice Cream Cone, he gets Mr. Ice Cream Cone. I tell him to get his little piggy, and you guessed it! He gets his little piggy. He might not know how to use the dog door but he is still a genius, damn it!
“Names of toys”.
I would say your Schnoodle regards the “name of toys” as a command to bring that thing you “name” but he doesn’t understand the name as a name.
My dog keeps her toys in a big pile by her bed. She can identify and dig out when asked at least 12 specific toys. She is also stubborn and petty af. If that doesn’t make her smart I don’t know what does lol. She has trained me to feed her by giving me a significant look. She might be smarter than me.
Dogs are instinct-driven and bred to obey man.
Not much intelligence there.
Actually wolves are more intelligent than dogs because they haven’t been bred to be obedient which kills creativity because obedient creatures wait for a command instead of looking for a solution. Wolves jump higher. They can open doors. They will want to renegotiate the hierarchy with their “human owner” whenever said owner is ill. They apply more creativity when faced with a challenge than dogs.
But their intelligence is the reason why some dog owners long to have a wolf for a pet *dangerous*.
I mean, they’re not wrong.
People project way too much onto their dogs. Many dog owners are filling a very specific psychological need with their specific choice of breed and temperament. Watch a dog and you’ll learn a great deal about the owner.
my Dog is smart enough to have me trained 🙂
I’ve known a chicken who was just as smart, affectionate, and curious as my cat. I’m still not sure if that’s a compliment to the chicken or an insult to my cat though.
Dogs are incredibly intelligent, but so are most, if not all animals. I love the discussion that has popped up around this because it’s great to see so many people acknowledge that dogs have not only the ability to learn, but have emotions too! I see so many people in my line of work who struggle with their dogs “bad” behavior because they refuse to acknowledge that their dog is struggling or stressed. “No Becky, your dog did not tear up your house out of spite, he was TERRIFIED you weren’t coming home and acted out in the only way he knew how.” “No Becky, you do not need to pin your damn dog to the ground to prove you are the “dominant.”” I also saw a great discussion pop up about learned helplessness in dogs (and horses) and how extreme training or abuse (like shock collars), can cause dogs to basically just shut down. The owners think the dog is great because he/she isn’t acting out, when in reality the dog feels so hopeless that he/she just gives up. The more we know, the more we can improve the lives of these animals who are such a gift to us.
My attitude with my dog is to give her opportunities for success instead of getting in trouble for doing stuff she shouldn’t. She’s a fuzzy vacuum. If I leave food on the coffee table and leave the house, it’s not really her fault for eating it. I know who she is. I love to come home and love on her and praise her. I hate scolding.
I have a super clever papillon border collie mix, who can also be quite the space cadet. Still, he and my shepherd-wolf dog can read me like a book and along with my dear departed Corgi used to herd me around the house when they expected something.
I read the article. I think the scientists are legit. They’re not FAKE as indicated on the post. It’s really irresponsible accusation whether you agree or disagree with the study.