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Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100 different toys

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100 different toys

#31

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

knodi123 wrote: post #25
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #20

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.

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!

Oh yeah, had some dogs like that when I was a teenager. They could recognize my Firebird from a few blocks away. :-)

Re: Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100 different toys

#32

Post by alamortsubite »

knodi123 wrote: post #25
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #20

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.

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!

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.

Re: Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100 different toys

#33

Post by dj_mc_merlin »

sandworm101 wrote: post #13

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.

> 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.

Re: Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100 different toys

#34

Post by kevinmchugh »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #30
sandworm101 wrote: post #13

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.

Who can't remember the smell of more than a few dozen objects?

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

Re: Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100 different toys

#35

Post by kelvie »

whatsakandr wrote: post #9

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?"

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.

Re: Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100 different toys

#36

Post by alamortsubite »

_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #20

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.

It's a bit weird, but I think our animals spend far more time observing us than we realize.

Re: Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100 different toys

#37

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #23
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #20

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.

Curious how you determined what she had determined.

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.

Re: Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100 different toys

#38

Post by hackeraccount »

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.

Re: Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100 different toys

#39

Post by tigerlily »

whatsakandr wrote: post #9

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?"

Yes! And the one about the stranger in the paw (my memory is sketchy on the exact words). Mindblowing.

Re: Certain dogs are capable of learning the names for more than 100 different toys

#40

Post by BytesAndGears »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #33
sandworm101 wrote: post #13

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.

> 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…

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

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