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Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

nytimes.com

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Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#81

Post by merijnv »

alluro2 wrote: post #54
kortilla wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a puppy collie/Shepard mix that is about a year old. Do you have any tips/suggestions? Do you regret getting such a smart dog in general?

Genuinely curious - is there any reason why person would potentially prefer a less smart dog? I always thought that, the smarter they are, the better companions they can be, so your comment got me wondering.

The problem isn't high intelligence per se, it's that high intelligence in dogs also correlates with high energy (this makes sense, most intelligent dogs are sheep herders, like border collies, which were expected to be working most of the day!) and other personality traits that can be less than ideal.

High energy dogs get bored, frustrated, or destructive when not given enough exercise. And a high intelligence just means they're that much more creative in finding ways to amuse themselves (that probably won't amuse you...).

Additionally, part of what makes dogs such amazing companions is their empathy for humans not just intelligence. The current dog of my aunt and uncle is pretty dumb, compared to the previous one. But he loves people, cuddling, and he's super mellow.

He still needs to be walked 3-4 times a day, but not particularly long and he's perfectly happy just chilling and lying next to you all Saturday. That fits much better into less active lives than something high energy that needs to run 10-15 miles a day...

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#82

Post by bodski »

nradov wrote: post #72
technothrasher wrote: post #41

"Chaser was taught to understand sentences containing a prepositional object, verb and direct object." I would have never believed this if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. A friend has a golden retriever that I was playing with one day, and I asked him to get me a stick. He did, but it wasn't the stick I was thinking of, so I just off hand said, "no, not that stick, the one by the rock." and damn if that dog didn't…

I wonder what would happen if we selectively bred dogs for that type of intelligence rather than for appearance and temperment? What are the upper limits of canine intelligence?

Brunner's 'Shockwave Rider' has an interesting vision of how super-intelligent dogs might take care of security for village sized human communities.

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#83

Post by NeedMoreTea »

kortilla wrote: post #53
clukic wrote: post #52

I read a book about Chaser shortly before I got my pup. And I followed much a what I read, naming everything he came in contact with, talking to him using familiar nouns and verbs, not wasting words. At almost 3, he's not Chaser smart, but he has developed an ear that can recognize the most subtle variations in words, and he can figure out novel combinations of nouns/verbs sometimes with a direct obect. For example r…

I have a puppy collie/Shepard mix that is about a year old. Do you have any tips/suggestions? Do you regret getting such a smart dog in general?

If you want to encourage the smart look into clicker training, particularly free shaping[1]. The most well known books are by Karen Pryor. You can train pretty much anything, and get insanely complex including the things this collie was doing.

For a decent introduction (there's a lot of crap on Youtube) this channel gives pretty good info, introductions, and lots of short videos on how to train all sorts of things: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-qnqaajTk6bfs3UZuue6IQ

Be warned, once it starts to work both dog and owner can find it (very) addictive. :)

Most impressive thing? First time seeing my dog stop and think, puzzle it out, then try something different. This is not mindless training by repetition.

[1] Edit: Free shaping is leaving everything to the dog to work out with human just providing helpful carefully timed nudges when he edges closer to the right thing. Before long the dog will start experimenting and look to you for reactions a lot more. It's magic, fast, and you'll transform your view of how smart your mutt is.

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#84

Post by asdf21 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #62

Aw, that's sad, we watched videos of this dog not long after we got our own border collie puppy some months ago. Then we tried in vain to get our dog to make word/object associations like this dog. No luck. Yes, BCs are smart. But that particular BC was really really smart. I hope its genetics live on in some lineage somewhere.

YOu can't stereotype by breed as much as people think.

I remember seeing some study about a dog IQ test (something like an oversized obstacle course in a barn -- but a legitimate study) and iirc Border Collies were the main subjects, and the IQ curve was basically a standard distribution, there were lots of dumb and average Border Collies, and only a handful of "highly intelligent" ones.

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#85

Post by k_sze »

devdas wrote: post #79
nradov wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what would happen if we selectively bred dogs for that type of intelligence rather than for appearance and temperment? What are the upper limits of canine intelligence?

Wolves. You would get wolves.

Wolves are actually... different in terms of intelligence. IIRC, there's study about how wolves tend not to rely on human help regardless of how long the wolves have lived with humans. They just ... don't get it. They can't tell that they can cooperate with humans. e.g. if there is a door and the wolf can't reach the latch, it won't seek help from the human at all, whereas a dog likely will.

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#86

Post by londons_explore »

bodski wrote: post #82
nradov wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what would happen if we selectively bred dogs for that type of intelligence rather than for appearance and temperment? What are the upper limits of canine intelligence?

Brunner's 'Shockwave Rider' has an interesting vision of how super-intelligent dogs might take care of security for village sized human communities.

Breed slightly too much intelligence into them, and suddenly your security guards are going to take that village hostage unless they receive double food quota...

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#87

Post by s0l1dsnak3123 »

londons_explore wrote: post #86
bodski wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brunner's 'Shockwave Rider' has an interesting vision of how super-intelligent dogs might take care of security for village sized human communities.

Breed slightly too much intelligence into them, and suddenly your security guards are going to take that village hostage unless they receive double food quota...

Sounds like they earned the right to strike at that point ;)

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#88

Post by andai »

manigandham wrote: post #56
alluro2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious - is there any reason why person would potentially prefer a less smart dog? I always thought that, the smarter they are, the better companions they can be, so your comment got me wondering.

The smarter they are, the more they observe and learn. This means they also learn bad or annoying things and it can be very difficult to then train them out of it. A good example is a border collie I know that accidentally broke a screen door, then suddenly learned that all screens can be opened at will and no window was safe. Smart breeds also need to be kept busy and entertained or they get anxious and angry. They'…

That last bit sounds like my high school experience.

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#89

Post by h2odragon »

sambroner wrote: post #74
h2odragon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others mentioned a couple of breeds that are generally known as smarter than usual; I'd add Catahoula to that list too. They're not as concerned about human's opinions of how they're doing their jobs as some others; they're doing the job, not waiting for the human's approval for having done it. One of ours can reliably tell time from analog wall clocks. It's her job to put our daughter to bed on time, and she does, u…

Can you explain more about this? What does putting your daughter to bed look like?? It sounds crazy!

She was a puppy when our daughter was younger, her bed was beside the little girls bed, with a ritual of reading a story. Settle in hound, give her blanket, settle in child, give her blanket, read a bit, goodnight. Wonderful to see.

Little hound grew and is polite but insistent on the fact that there is still a bedtime, even though it is later now and daughter no longer needs someone to sleep beside her all night.

https://knitowl.blogspot.com/2016/12/our-catahoula-schedule-...

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#90

Post by cmrdporcupine »

craigsmansion wrote: post #75
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your comment is a little off target with border collies to some degree. Of all the pure breds (and I also have problems with 'pure breeding' to some degree) they are probably the least like what you are calling out here. All the other breeds you mentioned are bred for looks. Border collies are bred for behaviour. The definition of a collie is fundamentally personality and behaviour traits, not a look. There i…

"Show lines" for Border collies have been long opposed by those who work Border collies, fearing inbreeding and health problems. Unfortunately, when things become popular (who wouldn't want the "smartest" dog?) they become lucrative, and the "working dog" heritage that protected them from genetic deficiencies now became a point of sale for them, leading to the inevitable inbreeding. Whereas before what constituted a…

That's unfortunate, and I guess we got lucky with our dog then. We have never had a pure-bred dog before, so it was kind of interesting to get her ancestry information from the border collie association, and see that her ancestors were Welsh herding dogs just a few generations back.

They're really lovely dogs, in personality. A challenge, to be sure, but she has such a strong desire to please and work hard.

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