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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

#101

Post by cj »

spike021 wrote: post #74
whatsakandr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 d…

> 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.

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

#102

Post by user_7832 »

legohead wrote: post #88
bongodongobob wrote: post #24

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 conc…

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. S…

> she would sneeze a lot

Btw dogs often do this to indicate they're playing/mean no harm :)

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

#103

Post by ozim »

spike021 wrote: post #74
whatsakandr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 d…

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.

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

#104

Post by cush »

bongodongobob wrote: post #24

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 conc…

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!

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

#105

Post by RussianCow »

deergomoo wrote: post #99
bongodongobob wrote: post #24

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 conc…

My dog occasionally forgets our house has an upstairs. He's still a good boy though.

Nice to meet you, fellow labrador owner!

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

#106

Post by [deleted] »

alamortsubite wrote: post #36
_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.

[deleted]

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

#107

Post by qup »

legohead wrote: post #88
bongodongobob wrote: post #24

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 conc…

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. S…

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.

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

#108

Post by RussianCow »

LandR wrote: post #49
knodi123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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 th…

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.

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

#109

Post by ghshephard »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #54
ghshephard wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

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…

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.

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

#110

Post by sokoloff »

bongodongobob wrote: post #24

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 conc…

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).

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