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There is a saying: "Border herders are border herders, dogs are dogs." "

Border collies are generally considered the most "intelligent" breed of dog. On the Internet, we can often see border herders following their master's instructions word for word, netizens are teasing,"Don't delay the dog to go to college."

▲ Photo source: Sika observer

Is Border Shepherd really that smart?

The smartest dog in the world is Chaser, a South Carolina border herder owned by a retired psychology professor. From the age of two months Chaser was deliberately trained to recognize nouns.

Chaser and Master. Photo credit: American Kennel Club

The owner would take a blue ball, show it to Chaser, tell him what it was, and throw it out for him to pick up. By the third day, Chaser was able to retrieve the item without fail.

By the time Chaser was five months old, he knew 40 nouns.

Later, Chaser became familiar with this pattern and learned things faster and faster. He could recognize new items after teaching them once. In 15 years of dog life, he has learned more than 1000 nouns and can understand some adjectives, such as big, small, fast and slow.

Chaser can accurately pick up toys by listening only to sounds. Photo credit: BBC One

Similarly, a German border herder named Rico has been found to have similar talents. It can match 200 items to its tag. Researchers believe Rico learns new things at a speed and accuracy similar to that of a three-year-old.

But not all border herders are so smart.

Fugazza, an animal behaviorist, conducted an experiment with 34 dogs of different breeds and asked their owners to teach them the names of two different toys. In the end, only one border shepherd named Oliva succeeded in identifying the two toys and passed the test.

Of the 33 dogs that failed, 18 were border herders. This means that learning talent varies from dog to dog, even among dogs of the same breed.

In a dog agility contest, one named P! NK's Border Herder won the championship for three consecutive years. Photo by Fox Sports

In fact, the dog "learning bully" not only border herding, other breeds of dogs also have relatively high "IQ," including poodle, German shepherd dog, golden retriever, Doberman dog, Labrador and so on.

These dog breeds are generally able to understand a new command from their owner with less than five repetitions and have a 95% chance of remembering the command.

Dogs are even better than chimpanzees at obeying human commands.

The researchers placed two locations in front of various animals, one of which had food, and the person pointed in the direction of the food. Chimpanzees ignore human cues and move randomly to one of these locations; cats stare strangely at human fingers.

Only dogs will follow human instructions and will not hesitate to dive where there is food.

▲ Chimpanzee A Pang and bulldog James in Japanese variety show "A Ben and A Zhan." Photo Credit: gifer

Dogs are very good at observing and imitating humans.

Psychologists often use the "detour problem." That is, place a V-shaped fence in front of the dog, with the bottom of the V facing the dog, and food placed behind the fence.

If the puppy wants to eat food, it must go around the fence, which means it must get farther and farther away from the target to achieve its goal. It takes four to five attempts before the puppy can successfully eat the food. But if a human demonstrated it first, the puppy would succeed immediately.

▲ Photo source: Boredpanda

In contrast, some dog breeds are very "disobedient," such as the chow, pit bull, shih Tzu, saint Bernard, chihuahua, Afghan hound and so on.

Researchers have trained pumpkins and found that a single command to sit takes an average of 80 to 100 tries. And only 25% of the time they remember it.

The dog can grow up to 40 kg. Image Source: Pinterest

The husky that everyone likes is slightly better than the chow dog, and the instructions can be repeated 25 to 40 times to learn.

But some researchers believe that those dogs that are difficult to train are not IQ problems, but personality problems. Breeds that rank lower in trainability generally do so because they are easily distracted during training and attracted to other smells or sounds that impede their ability to learn skills.

So, if your dog isn't smart, you can defend him by saying,"My dog has personality. "

▲ Photo source: icegif

In the same way, it is not "smart" dogs that make guide dogs. Dogs that fail to act as guide dogs are usually due to personality problems, including fear, excessive excitement, shyness, aggression, or lack of cooperation.

And only dogs who love the job can be guide dogs.

Guide dogs are very focused when they "go to work," so don't pet and feed them when you see them on the road. After "work," they want to play with their owners and get caressed like ordinary pets.

A handsome guide dog. Photo by AZPetvet

What factors influence a dog's sociality and personality?

One of the more critical factors, the researchers found, was the severity of the mother's weaning.

Generally, puppies will gradually start weaning at four or five weeks of age, and the mother will refuse to feed the puppies. Some mothers will be harsh, grunting and grimacing to deny milk to their pups, while others will be gentle, choosing to soothe their pups with licks and petting.

Source: Dogs-Love to Know

The severity of the mother's weaning period will directly affect the quality of the puppy's relationship with humans when it grows up.

To determine how tame the pups were, researchers gave them a "retrieval test," in which they threw a tennis ball and asked the pup to retrieve it. Those who could not retrieve the tennis ball were generally difficult to tame as adults, and puppies with a gentle mother tended to perform better on this test.

It should be emphasized that although genes and environment affect the training difficulty of dogs, with proper skills and training, most dogs can master certain skills and adapt to the living environment of coexistence with humans.

Poodles, because they are cute and easy to train, are frequent visitors to the circus. Image source: youtube

Stanley Coren, a psychologist who studies dogs, said: "The difference between two different dogs in any one breed is much greater than the difference between different breeds or lineages. "

About 15,000 years ago, humans began domesticating dogs.

Dogs get closer to humans in exchange for food, and fully understand their owners 'intentions, allowing them to gain a greater chance of survival. Thus, under long-term natural and artificial selection, dogs have become the best domesticated animals for understanding complex human signals and for understanding human emotions.

A hunter with his dog on a rock in Libya about 7000 years ago. Photo credit: Getty Images

Dogs like you because it's a conditioned reflex. You feed them, play with them, pet them, and give them a comfortable nest, all of which can make them feel happy, and this feeling is closely related to you.

Similarly, if you get angry, cry, or yell, the dog will have an unpleasant reaction.

As human companions for a long time, our pursuit is not to train the most "intelligent" dogs in the world, but to make dogs our most loyal, tacit and understanding partners.

Dogs may do better than humans at this point.

▲ Photo source: Gifphy

References:

[1]Stanley Coren. How Dogs Think: What the world looks like to them and why they act the way they do.

[2]Rosalind Arden. et al. A general intelligence factor in dogs

[3]Some dogs are geniuses-just like humans. National Geographic

[4]Dogs understand praise the same way we do. Here's why that matters. National Geographic

[5]Remembering Chaser, the "Smartest Dog in the World". American Kennel Club

[6]Fugazza, C. et al. Word learning dogs (Canis familiaris) provide an animal model for studying exceptional performance. Sci Rep 11, 14070 (2021).

[7]Are chow chows the most stupid dogs in the world? The Guardian

[8]Dogs: an uncomplicated relationship. The Guardian

[9]Who's a clever dog? Scientists study secrets of canine cognition. The Guardian

[10]How Guide Dogs Work. How stuff works

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Bringing Science Home (ID: steamforkids), written by Greye Reviewer: Han Jingjing

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