Canine Intelligence

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Canine Intelligence

There are many theories about the intelligence of the dog. The majority of dog owners know that their dogs are very bright: these owners can tell any number of stories that demonstrate the animal's high intelligence. In addition to the clever ways in which dogs outwit their owners, canine intelligence shines when dogs are asked to perform the tasks for which they were bred. For instance, the Border Collie is exceptionally quick to learn how to herd a flock of sheep, and only risk appearing stupid when you ask him to scent out a bird. The bird dog
who finds the bird naturally, without training, is labeled extremely intelligent. Yet this same genius will look dumb, and probably get trampled, if allowed to mingle with a flock of sheep.

Motivation is a big part of intelligence. One dog owner scheduled an appointment to have her dog evaluated after a discussion with her friend. The dog owner and her friend were convinced that the dog had a learning disability because the friend's Labrador Retriever could open doors with his nose and paw, whereas the other dog would just sit in front of the door and wait for someone to open it. The idea never occurred to this person that the dog didn't want to go through the door all that badly or that he was smart enough to wait for her to open it instead of expending energy.

Another client who owned and trained Border Collies labeled one of her dogs retarded because the dog did not appear to grasp the concept of retrieving as quickly as her other Border Collies. Once the training method was adapted for the dog's particular temperament, which was different from that of the typical Border Collie, she learned and enjoyed retrieving. This same dog would display aggression toward other dogs by growling and curling her lips to show her teeth. The trainers thought the owner was quite effective and consistent in correcting the lip curl until one of the trainers observed that when this "retarded" dog approached another canine, she quietly curled only one side of her mouth, the side the owner could not see.

Frequently, people believe that females are smarter than males. However, there is no evidence to date to support the theory of a significant difference in intelligence between the sexes. Those who claim there is a difference may be tainted by their prejudice toward or preference for one sex or the other. Intelligence is more apt to vary individually rather than by the sex of the animal.

Body Language: Your Dog's Movements & What They Mean

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Body Language: Your Dog's Movements & What They Mean

Dogs use their bodies and paws to express a variety of different things. Below are some examples and what they mean.

Dog crouches with front legs extended, rear up, and head near the ground: This is the classic play-bow and means simply "I want to play!"

Stiff-legged, upright posture or slow, stiff-legged movement forward: "I am in charge around here!" and "I challenge you." A dominant dog will use this posture to indicate assertion of authority and a willingness to fight for it.

Body slightly sloped forward, feet braced: "I accept your challenge and am ready to fight!"

Dog rolls on side or exposes underside: "Let us not argue" or "I am not a threat to you" or "I accept that you are in charge here." This is a submissive response to avert conflict. Many dogs adopt this posture in a fairly relaxed and contented manner when they are around their pack leader. When your dog rolls on his back for a belly rub, he is actually accepting you as leader of the pack.

Dog places head on another dog's shoulder or places paw on the back of another dog: "I want you to know who is the boss around here." These gestures are commonly used by dominant dogs, pack leaders, and dogs that have aspirations of becoming a pack leader.

Mouthing: This shows up in dog-human interactions as the dog taking the handler's hand in his mouth or, while walking, taking the lead in the mouth. Mouthing can be a serious sign of dominance challenging and shows that the dog does not accept the human as pack leader.

Dog places paw on master's knee: "Look, I am here" or "Pay attention to me." This attention-seeking signal has many variations. They include pawing the air in front of their master or sliding the head under the master's hand.

Hair bristles on back and shoulders: This is a sign of anticipated aggression. A ridge of hair bristling down the back is a sign that says "Do not push me, I am angry!" When the bristling extends to the shoulders it means "I have had it with you" and is a sign of an imminent attack.

Dog sits with one front paw slightly raised: This is another sign of stress but is combined with insecurity. It means "I am anxious, uneasy and concerned."

Dog rolls on his back and rubs it on the ground: This is sometimes preceded by nose rubbing where the dog pushes his face, and possibly his chest against the ground in a rubbing motion or rubs the face with a forepaw, from eyes to nose. They often follow feeding or occur as the dog's owner begins to prepare food. However they also can occur following or in anticipation of other pleasant activities.

Scraping the ground and ripping the turf with the paws: This is usually after the dog has defecated but may occur at other times. Dogs have glands on the bottom of their feet that provide each with a unique scent. What a dog is saying here is " I was here and I am leaving my calling card!"

Connecting Your Dog's Habits To Its Ancestors

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Connecting Your Dog's Habits To Its Ancestors

There are some things a dog cannot help doing. If he is going to bite someone, he needs to look at his target, and he needs to bare his teeth. If he is going to defend himself, he has to tuck his ears back and his tail down and turn aside. In the dark unrecorded mists of wolf history, wolves that had the wits to notice these things had an edge over their more obtuse pack-mates. Being on the lookout for the fangs or the intent stare of a more powerful member of the pack was a way to avoid unnecessary physical injury from a wolf one had no intention of challenging anyway; being on the lookout for the cringe or the averted gaze of a weaker member was a way to avoid the unnecessary trouble and danger of fighting with a wolf who was prepared to give way without a fight anyway.

Once wolves were on the lookout for unintentionally dropped hints, it became possible to start dropping them intentionally. A wolf that can accurately read a fang or a stare as a threat can avoid a fight and a wolf that can show a fang or fix a stare can then express a threat without a fight. This evolutionary feedback loop between receivers and senders is what was almost surely behind the development and rituals of the visual signals that wolves, and now dogs, use.

Most of these signals are directly related to the very serious wolf business of dominance and submission within the pack. Dominance and threatening signals include baring the teeth, pricking the ears, and staring. Submissive and nonthreatening signals include laying the ears back, averting the gaze, approaching obliquely rather than head on, tucking the tail tightly under the belly, and (the ultimate gesture of passive surrender to superior force) rolling over and lying belly-up. Over sufficiently long time, these signals become ritualized. Every time a wolf lifts his lips and shows his fangs, he is not literally about to bite; rather this is a symbol of threatening intentions, and, at this point in the evolutionary history of the wolf, read as such by other wolves. Wolves are predisposed to read it that way because of the indisputable fact of evolutionary history that fangs really do bite. Wolves became in turn disposed to use a show of fangs as a threatening gesture precisely because wolves were predisposed to react to fangs as a threat.

Just about all vertebrate animals long ago acquired an innate appreciation of another biological fact that is frequently exploited in visual communication: big things out there are more dangerous than small things. Thus threatening or dominance-asserting wolves try to literally look big. They stand erect, sometimes astride the animal they are attempting to impress, they raise their tails, they stiffen their hackles.

Submissive or fearful dogs try to look small by crouching low, sometimes even dragging themselves along the ground. It is important to realize that this does not mean that the big- looking wolf is conscious of how big he looks, nor that any other wolf is fooled into thinking he really is big. Again, these are rituals. But they ultimately derive from the fact that wolves have been wired to react in ways that make these rituals effective.

Dogs & Myopia (nearsightedness)

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Dogs & Myopia (nearsightedness)

Optical measurements of dogs' eyes have found a surprising incidence of myopia in some breeds. A study of about two hundred dogs by a veterinarian named Christopher J. Murphy and his colleagues found the average canine refractive error to be pretty close to normal (within a quarter of a diopter of perfect, an amount that would not provoke any person to get glasses). Several breeds of sporting dogs, such as Chesapeake Bay retrievers, golden retrievers, Labrador retrievers, cocker spaniels, and springer spaniels, were on average a bit farsighted. But two-thirds of Rottweiler and half of German shepherds and miniature schnauzers in this study were significantly myopic, by more than 1.5 diopters. The myopic Rottweilers were close to 3 diopters nearsighted on average. Generally, people who have more than about 0.75 diopters of nearsightedness will complain of noticeable impairment and find they need to wear glasses or contact lenses to function in everyday life.

The animals in this study population were all pets. Interestingly, when Murphy and his coworkers looked at a second population of German shepherds - animals kenneled at Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California - they found that the guide dogs had average normal vision, with fewer than a third showing even as much as 0.5 diopters of nearsightedness. The guide dog program did not specifically test dogs' vision in selecting animals, but they did flunk out any dogs that failed to perform well in training, which suggests that myopia results in a real impairment in getting the job done. The average farsightedness of sporting dog breeds suggests that there has likewise been selection at work in these breeds - that good distance vision has a demonstrable effect on making a good working dog.
The researchers noted a tendency for severe nearsightedness to run in families, which suggests a strongly inherited component. In breeds that are not expected to perform anything more demanding than lying on the carpet, walking on a leash, and finding their supper bowl, there has no doubt been little selection for good vision, which has allowed myopia to sneak into the gene pool.

There are distinct breed differences in peripheral vision and overall field of view as well. Human eyes look straight ahead, giving us just about a 180-degree field of view, but with a lot of overlap between left and right eyes. Animals can see in true 3-D vision only when they use both eyes together, and the overlap in the human visual field thus maximizes the region in which we can perceive depth by using this binocular vision. The eyes of dogs are turned a bit to the side, which allows them to see a bit to the rear, with a wider overall field of vision.

How To End Your Dog's Food Begging

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How To End Your Dog's Food Begging

Begging usually becomes a habit if you feed the dog from the table when he begs. He won't leave the table if he's reinforced for staying with tidbits. Command the dog to "settle" at the table and enforce it. He'll tire of staring up and will soon fall asleep if you don't reward him for begging. If you give the dog a scrap from the table, give it only when he's in a settle position.

Some dogs are just born optimistic, and even though they have never received food from the table, they plant themselves at the table, hoping something will fall their way. Dropped food is a good beggar reinforcement, especially if you have a child who likes to make a game of dropping food on purpose. You may choose to train the dog to settle or down-stay in another room or at a distance from the table.

The dog must never bite the hand that feeds. To make sure that he doesn't, teach him the command "easy." Offer him a treat by holding the treat in your thumb and index finger keeping your palm toward your body and your knuckles facing the dog. If the dog grabs for the treat, give him a very loud and firm command by saying "Easy". After a few rounds of this practice, he will generally take the food from your hand gently.

Dogs & Open Car Windows

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Dogs & Open Car Windows

Experts estimate that dogs can catch a whiff of something that's one million times less concentrated than what humans can detect. With so much sniff power, it's hardly surprising that they stick their heads out car windows. They could care less about the scenery. What they're after are smells. If you're driving through town at 30 miles an hour and your dog has his nose out the window, he knows where the bakery is, where the butcher shop is, which street leads to the local McDonald's, and maybe even what the mayor had for breakfast.

Dogs assume a characteristic expression when they put their faces into the wind: Their upper
lips curl, their noses wrinkle, their eyes partly close, and their ears fold back. It looks as though they're experiencing a moment of ecstasy (which they probably are) but mainly they're concentrating. It's as though they're closing down all the rest of their senses to focus on this one.

There's a world of fascinating scents outside the car. This dog loves to hang her head out the window and sample every one of them. All dogs, from huge Great Danes to tiny terriers, have extraordinarily acute senses of smell. Their scenting ability is enhanced when they are moving quickly, which is one reason that they take advantage of open car windows.

Smells are so important to dogs that they have two separate systems for detecting them. One is the nose system. It consists of a huge amount of tissue called olfactory epithelium, which is loaded with scent receptors. This area takes up about 1/2 square inch in humans, but up to 20 square inches in some dog breeds. As air moves over the tissue, odor molecules settle in millions of scent receptors. The more air flow there is, the more scents dogs detect. A Dog's sense of smell is enhanced when they're moving quickly. In the evolutionary scheme of things, this probably made them better hunters because they could load up on scents while chasing prey.

Dogs have a second smelling system that's headquartered in their mouths. Near the upper
incisors is a tiny duct that leads to a specialized gland called Jacobson's organ. It's designed to capture and interpret the most primitive types of smells. Dogs depend on it to identify other
dogs, choose a mate, and smell prey. When dogs scrunch up their faces in the wind, it looks like they're catching flies, but what they're really doing is catching scents.

How “Wolf-Behavior” Has Slowly Disappeared Within Dogs

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How “Wolf-Behavior” Has Slowly Disappeared Within Dogs

Studies of free-ranging dogs have documented the ways in which wolf behavior has been attenuated or extinguished over the course of evolution. In cities and villages, dogs that wander freely generally do not form packs, and while each dog has an identifiable home range that he sticks to, these ranges overlap almost completely with those of other dogs.

Free-ranging dogs do engage in wolf-like urine marking throughout their range, but they show almost no inclination to defend their territory against intruders. Even when feral dogs do form into packs, as they do sometimes in rural areas or in and around garbage dumps, these do not behave like wolf packs. Feral dog packs will sometimes more actively defend a
territory and kill dogs that intrude, but they lack many of the more developed cooperative behaviors of wolves, such as care of the young by all adult members of the group. Reproductive behavior is also much looser, or at least certainly much more variable.

Ray Coppinger, a researcher, observed a huge range of sexual behavior among village and feral dogs around the world. At one extreme, male New Guinea singing dogs are fiercely competitive, but in a very non-wolf-like way; they behave more like the males of species that occupy and defend individual territories, and the mere sight of another male provokes attack. At the other extreme, and perhaps much more typical of dogs, were the village dogs he encountered in Venezuela who "were observed to line up and breed a female sequentially, with little aggression between them."

There is certainly no simple explanation for all of these behavioral differences between wolf and dog. Changes in neurotransmitter and hormonal levels, disruptions of the juvenile stages of development in which behaviors are molded, and the persistence of juvenile traits into adulthood are all factors in the transformation. The overall picture that emerges is that dogs are less confrontational and fearful, and while they retain a capacity for asserting dominance (as well as for acquiescing in subordination), their social interactions lack the urgency or insistence that one sees in wolf society. There is simply less at stake.

The social pressure cooker of the wolf pack has been replaced with a tepid cauldron. Dogs have no need and no inclination for the packed and charged social world of their ancestors. That essentially all male dogs mark their home range with raised-leg urinations (as do the relatively unsocial male coyotes), that no male or female dog is inhibited from breeding by other dogs, and that most free-ranging dogs do not form coherent packs suggests that dog society has fragmented from a group of fiefdoms to a rather more democratic polity.