Dog intelligence

Dog intelligence is the ability of a dog to learn, to think, and to solve problems. Dog trainers, owners, and researchers have as much (or more) difficulty agreeing on a method for testing dog intelligence as they do for human intelligence.

Certain breeds, such as Border Collies and Golden Retrievers, are generally easier to train than others, such as some hounds and sled dogs. It is worth noting that these descriptions are relative to other dogs, not relative to the world at large. Even the most self-centered, easily distracted, and/or lazy dog is much easier to obedience train than, for example, any cat. The ability to learn and obey commands, however, is not the only possible measurement of intelligence.

Dogs are pack animals, which means that by nature they understand social structure and obligations and are capable of quickly learning how to behave around other members of the pack, whether dog or human. Adult canines train their young by correcting them when they behave in an unacceptable manner (biting too hard, eating out of turn, and so on) and reward them for acceptable behavior (by playing with them, feeding them, cleaning them, and so on).
They are also den animals, so that by nature they can easily learn behavior related to keeping the den clean (such as housebreaking), relaxing in an enclosed area (such as a crate during travel or for training), and so on.

Some breeds have been selectively bred for hundreds or thousands of years for the quality of learning quickly; in other breeds, that quality has been downplayed in favor of other characteristics, such as the ability to track or hunt game or to fight other animals. However, the capacity to learn basic obedience--and even complicated behavior--is inherent in all dogs. Owners must simply be more patient with some breeds than with others.

Some people feel that the ability to learn quickly is a sign of intelligence; others feel that it is a sign of blind subservience and that the truly intelligent dogs are breeds such as Siberian Huskies, who are not particularly interested in pleasing their owners but who are fascinated with the myriad possibilities for escaping from yards or for catching and killing small animals and often figure out, on their own, numerous inventive and ingenius ways of doing both.
For example, some might say that guide dogs, which are required to be obedient at all times, are not intelligent dogs because they do not spend a lot of time figuring out new things to do.

However, they must learn a tremendous number of commands, understand how to act in a large variety of situations, and recognize threats or dangers to their human companion, some of which they might never before have encountered.

Some tests for intelligence involve the dog's ability to recognize and respond to a large vocabulary; other tests involve their desire or ability to respond to different situations. If you put a towel over a dog's head, is the intelligent dog the one who pulls it off or is the intelligent dog the one who sits and waits, figuring that humans do strange things from time to time and if they put the towel on the dog's head there must be a reason for it? Just as with humans, there is a wide variety of interpretations as to what makes a dog "intelligent".

Research
Various studies have attempted to confirm the intelligence of dogs in a rigourous manner. A recent example is animal psychologist Juliane Kaminski's paper in Science that demonstrated that Rico, a Border Collie, could learn over 200 words. Rico could remember items' names for four weeks after last exposure (Kaminski eliminated the Clever Hans effect using strict protocols).

Rico was also able to interpret phrases such as "fetch the sock" in terms of its component words (rather than considering the utterance to be a single word): he could give the sock to a specified person.

Stanley Coren ranked dog breeds by intelligence in his book The Intelligence of Dogs based on surveys of dog trainers.

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Dog Clicker training

Clicker training for dog


Most dogs love it when the clicker comes out.

Clicker training is the process of using a clicker to mark a desired behavior in dog training. It was originally used in training animals for which traditional methods of obedience training weren't useful, such as dolphins in wild-animal shows or carrier pigeons used for specific military purposes.

One of the challenges in training an dog is in letting it know when it has done the behavior that the trainer is attempting to reinforce. As a simple example, when teaching a dog to shake hands, the first step would be to encourage the dog simply to lift one paw. At the instant that the dog raises the paw, the trainer must let the dog know that it has done the correct thing.

However, the traditional "good dog!" takes so long to say that the dog might already have lowered the paw again before realizing that it is being praised. In addition, people's voices, pronunciation, tone, loudness, and emphasis, and how long it takes to say the words can change, even at different minutes of the same training session, so that the animal has to learn to interpret through all of the nuances to understand what the trainer is attempting to convey.

A clicker solves these problems. It is a very short sound that can be made and completed at the instant the behavior occurs. The sound is always exactly the same--same loudness, same tone, same length.

The first step in clicker training is to teach the animal that the clicker sound means that they will get a reward. To do this, the trainer does what is called loading the clicker: Over a few sessions, the trainer clicks the clicker and immediately thereafter gives the dog a reward (such as a treat), clicks again and rewards again, and so on for about 20 repetitions each session. Dogs, for example, learn the association very quickly.

After that, the trainer can use the clicker to begin marking desired behaviors; each time that the dog performs the behavior, the trainer clicks and, quickly thereafter, rewards. The primary key to clicker training for dog is the trainer's timing; clicking slightly too early or too late can quickly establish an incorrect association in the dog's mind.


Allan
For more dog training tips, check out Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer