Road Apples
Sept. 14, 2009

When great minds meet

By Tim Sanders

I recently ran across an interesting article by Jordana Huber, of Canwest News Service, which, unless I miss my guess, is a news service in Western Canada. The article, dated August 26, 2009, is titled “Average dog smart as a two-year-old,” and offers an explanation of that hypothesis by University of British Columbia psychologist and canine researcher Stanley Coren. Dr. Coren’s research indicates that, much like humans, dogs can solve complex problems, learn to send text messages and operate forklifts. Okay, so I was kidding about the forklifts, but the article does say:


“Based on a review of numerous studies and several behavioral measures, Coren said a dog’s mental abilities are close to that of a human child age two to 2.5 years.”


Dr. Coren says that average dogs can learn as many as 165 words and signs, and that super-intelligent dogs can learn up to 250 words and signs. He also postulates that the average pooch can do simple arithmetic, and quotes veteran Ontario dog breeder John Mitchell, who says:


“There’s an old saying: If you don’t think a dog can count just put two cookies in your pocket then give him one and see what happens.”


Of course if the dog in question has had a difficult day, and is distracted by those pesky butt mites that have been making him scoot around on the carpeting until smoke emerges from his hindquarters, he might resent the fact that you’ve left one delicious cookie hidden in your pocket, and go for that pocket with his teeth bared. On the other hand, he might not care for Oreos, and simply wander outside to roll on a dead worm. We here at the Sanders Dog Institute have owned a wide variety of dogs and cookies for years, and we know full well that no matter how smart or how dumb a dog is, all dogs are individuals. We do, however, accept the general notion that if you leave a cookie, or twelve cookies, in your pants pocket, your dog will probably smell them and, if things have been going fairly well for him and he is not distracted by dead worms in the backyard, he will react accordingly. (Let me think for a moment. Master put fourteen Fig Newtons in his pocket, and gave me half of one. That would leave ... I don’t know exactly, but it smells like a whole lot, so I’ll stick my wet nose into his crotch until he gives me some more.) We believe, however, that this has more to do with a highly developed sense of smell rather than a highly developed sense of mathematics.

The article also contains a list of the smartest and dumbest breeds of dogs, but I had no confidence in it, so I looked up a larger list on a site called Canine’s Corner, which ranks 79 breeds of dogs according to their intelligence. The rankings are broken into categories. Brightest Dogs include the Border Collie, the Poodle, and the German Shepherd. In the Excellent or "Gifted" category are the Welsh Corgie, the Miniature Schnauzer, and the Cocker Spaniel. The Yorkshire Terrier, the Airedale, and the Irish Setter all fall into the Above Average ranks, while the Black and Tan Coonhound, the Great Dane, and the Dachshund only get an Average rating. Dogs like the Pug, the Dandie Dinmont Terrier, and the Bull Terrier are considered semi-retarded, and the Basset Hound, the Beagle, and the Pekinese, according to this list, are ranked, intellectually speaking, right behind the artichoke and the Idaho potato.

I gave the matter some thought, and wondered what would happen to Coren’s theory if it were tested by pitting an average two-year-old child against an average dog in a situation requiring logic, reasoning, and adaptability.
 Fortunately, I have in my extensive files just such a case. It occurred several years ago, and involved an average two-year-old girl and a Black and Tan Coonhound, which is ranked officially as number 44 on the Canine’s Corner intelligence list, and therefore absolutely average, dogwise.

Believe it or not, my wife was once a child, and as a two-year-old she had an interesting encounter with a dog. She told me of the incident several times over the years, but it had never occurred to me that a Canadian researcher would one day explain exactly what happened at Marilyn’s Aunt Mattie’s and Uncle Fred’s farmhouse in the old Round Mountain community.

From all accounts, Marilyn was a gentle, well-mannered child–particularly when she was sleeping. Sometimes when she was awake, however, Satan made her do bad things. At least that’s what many of her relatives thought. To hear her tell it, it was only rugged individualism and natural curiosity. I tend to believe her version, because she tells me it is in my best interest to do so.

At any rate, the incident occurred when Marilyn discovered her Uncle’s hound dog lying peacefully in the sun in the front yard. She is not sure of the details, but she thinks that the dog’s tail attracted her attention because a) she didn’t have one of her own, and b) although the dog was lying perfectly still, its tail wagged spasmodically from time to time. After due consideration she decided to stomp on the poor animal’s tail, to see what would happen. I am not sure, but knowing Marilyn as I do, I suspect she jumped into the air and landed on that tail with both of her little feet. She insists that she was a bright child, so it was probably a scientific experiment to test the dog’s reflexes and reaction time. The dog was at first alarmed, then momentarily confused, and finally just a bit aggravated. After weighing its options, it decided to bite her. Marilyn then ran howling into the house, while the dog remained outside, also howling.

That story had always intrigued me, but never, until I read the Coren article, had I looked at it as the meeting of two intellectual equals.

Of course, had that Average Coonhound been a Genius Border Collie or a Savant Poodle, Marilyn might have found herself quietly removed to the backyard and dropped unceremoniously down the well. As a doggie experiment, to check her buoyancy.