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[__ Science __ ] How Smart Is The Canine Brain?

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HeIsRisen2018

Dramione love 3333
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I was just wondering since my mother and I were just discussing this at supper. (and yes that's where most of our discussions occur lol) Anyway, you know how some dogs are trained to "play hide and go seek with you" or find their dog toys? Well could they find somebody who was missing without any training at all and just rely on their own intelligence? Does anybody here know the answer to that? :chin
 
Not sure exactly what you mean, but dogs are pretty intelligent. Training just gives direction and motivation to do what they already know how to do. For example, a drug-sniffer dog knows that if he locates the contraband, he will get a behavior reward (a treat or praise).

I was walking a dog that suddenly pulled me towards a thick (meter high) grass. Seconds later, he emerged with a tennis ball someone had lost there. He loved tennis balls, so when he got a whiff of it needed no further prodding.
 
Well could they find somebody who was missing without any training at all and just rely on their own intelligence?

No. They could find somebody alright, but they'd have no idea if it was a missing person you'd like to find, or not. They wouldn't much care, either way; they like finding people!

If you want a dog to find someone specific, you'd better have something of that person's that has their scent on it. Then, if there's no scent trail from where the dog is, it's entirely random if the dog will ever pick up the trail. Once they get the trail, the person's as good as found, assuming they stayed on foot and didn't cross a river or anything that would erase their path.

And that assumes you're working with a dog that wants to track a scent to begin with. If you have a dog that doesn't, no amount of cajoling is going to make a difference.
 
Answer is, we don't really know. The consensus seems to be that dogs are pretty much evolved to study and understand humans. And they constantly watch us to learn more. Two of my dogs would get up and head for the crate before I realized I was about to go out somewhere.

Somehow, they picked up subtle clues from me before
There's no reason at all for Him to classify bats as birds or classify whales as fish for dietary reasons.
 
Dogs in general are very cool. They are the only animal that craves human companionship. I think cats may do so but on their terms.

It appears that dogs became voluntarily domesticated. It paid off for them.

Imagine two wolves thinking it over:

"Yeah, they're slow, and they can't track to save their lives, but did you see last week? They took down a mammoth. We need to get in on that."

A man/dog pack must have seemed like a nightmare for anything they decided to hunt.
 
I believe Kevin had a good answer here.

It seems dogs are intelligent by seeing how they pick up on our behaviors, our patterns, how we train them, and learning how to respond appropriately.

I have no doubt a dog would be able to find someone without any prior training. They would rely on their senses. Divine intervention can have a part, too, in my opinion.

I remember hearing a story of someone walking their dog. The dog acted strangely, trying to get away. Once the dog got away and bolted quite a distance, the owner was running after the dog and when her dog stopped at someone else's house they had discovered there was an unresponsive baby inside and the parents were panicking. The dogs owner was able to be of assistance. From what I understand, the baby survived.

There was another story of a dog sitting by the main road away from its home. A police officer drove by, noticed the dog, and decided to follow him since they were headed somewhere. The dog led them to the owners blazing home. From there, the officer was able to help and call in for more help.
 
It appears that dogs became voluntarily domesticated. It paid off for them.

Imagine two wolves thinking it over:

"Yeah, they're slow, and they can't track to save their lives, but did you see last week? They took down a mammoth. We need to get in on that."

A man/dog pack must have seemed like a nightmare for anything they decided to hunt.

It's more than that. Completely wild wolves have befriended small adults that they could have killed, in recent years. No reward other than affection, companionship, (and imho satisfying genuine curiosity is part of it)

Although developing the symbiotic relationship we have surely did involve survival. I'm surprised I haven't heard of any prehistoric art depicting the use of hunting dogs (Burns saying "release the hounds" may come close, but probably doesn't count, lol)
 
I believe Kevin had a good answer here.

It seems dogs are intelligent by seeing how they pick up on our behaviors, our patterns, how we train them, and learning how to respond appropriately.

I have no doubt a dog would be able to find someone without any prior training. They would rely on their senses. Divine intervention can have a part, too, in my opinion.

I remember hearing a story of someone walking their dog. The dog acted strangely, trying to get away. Once the dog got away and bolted quite a distance, the owner was running after the dog and when her dog stopped at someone else's house they had discovered there was an unresponsive baby inside and the parents were panicking. The dogs owner was able to be of assistance. From what I understand, the baby survived.

There was another story of a dog sitting by the main road away from its home. A police officer drove by, noticed the dog, and decided to follow him since they were headed somewhere. The dog led them to the owners blazing home. From there, the officer was able to help and call in for more help.
Cheyenne, that dog would bark at me for help if my wife was in bad pain. she also would try to calm her down. with me she barked to wake me up if I had a ptsd event, dreams. my dad's dog prince and Cheyenne would comfort me if I was depressed. Prince wouldn't leave me alone if sensed I was sad and would sleep in the room and wouldn't leave the room. if I got up to go to the kitchen to eat he would follow.

I miss those two. prince crossed the bridge in 2009, Cheyenne 2016. I used to have to comfort both during inclement weather.
 
I believe Kevin had a good answer here.

It seems dogs are intelligent by seeing how they pick up on our behaviors, our patterns, how we train them, and learning how to respond appropriately.

I have no doubt a dog would be able to find someone without any prior training. They would rely on their senses. Divine intervention can have a part, too, in my opinion.

I remember hearing a story of someone walking their dog. The dog acted strangely, trying to get away. Once the dog got away and bolted quite a distance, the owner was running after the dog and when her dog stopped at someone else's house they had discovered there was an unresponsive baby inside and the parents were panicking. The dogs owner was able to be of assistance. From what I understand, the baby survived.

There was another story of a dog sitting by the main road away from its home. A police officer drove by, noticed the dog, and decided to follow him since they were headed somewhere. The dog led them to the owners blazing home. From there, the officer was able to help and call in for more help.
Cheyenne, that dog would bark at me for help if my wife was in bad pain. she also would try to calm her down. with me she barked to wake me up if I had a ptsd event, dreams. my dad's dog prince and Cheyenne would comfort me if I was depressed. Prince wouldn't leave me alone if sensed I was sad and would sleep in the room and wouldn't leave the room. if I got up to go to the kitchen to eat he would follow.

I miss those two. prince crossed the bridge in 2009, Cheyenne 2016. I used to have to comfort both during inclement weather.

Sorry for your loss. These two sounded like wonderful companions!

It is amazing how dogs can understand someone has a medical illness or temporary illness.

I remember the story of a girl and her family found a small dog in the dumpster. They planned to rehome him, but the girl had epilepsy and the dog would bark everytime she was starting to have a seizure. They kept the dog, and it was their blessing.
 
Sorry for your loss. These two sounded like wonderful companions!

It is amazing how dogs can understand someone has a medical illness or temporary illness.

I remember the story of a girl and her family found a small dog in the dumpster. They planned to rehome him, but the girl had epilepsy and the dog would bark everytime she was starting to have a seizure. They kept the dog, and it was their blessing.
I lived with my dad up to I got married in 2001, Cheyenne would be brought to visit prince a few times but as far as them living together , no. I also had an older dog sasha who passed in 2006 and was a mama to Cheyenne. she loved prince and wasn't afraid of the storms and would coach prince to come out of hiding. I didn't mention that girl as she didn't do those things but had her ways.
 
My introduction to skiing in copper country was seeing what looked like moguls (bumps in the snow) moving, as I was going uphill on the ski lift.

It was actually a white Husky, and the owner was in the chair ahead of me. His dog would run uphill when he was on the lift, meet him at the top, then turn around and run downhill. Not only would the dog run quicker than his owner skied, (and this is super steep so you ski downhill really fast) but the dog picked better lines than the skier, too. As the evening went on the dog stopped running all the way to the top, and no longer could keep up with the skier going downhill, either; but he never stopped running.

The intelligence of the animal to navigate this was really impressive, not to mention his ability to stay out of the way of other skiers. There's no way the owner trained the dog to do this, but he did have to exert control to prevent the dog from running itself to death.

It was also really cool that the facility let them do this. It was a great introduction to a beautiful part of the world. I've also seen people skijoring across flat-ish ground, which is basically using your dog to pull you as you cross country ski. They use a specialized spring loaded tow rope to avoid too much shock to the dog, evening out the weight they pull.

Dogs doing anything like that are really happy! Dogs will always be happier when you spend a lot of time with them, developing a good relationship
 
Cheyenne, that dog would bark at me for help if my wife was in bad pain. she also would try to calm her down. with me she barked to wake me up if I had a ptsd event, dreams. my dad's dog prince and Cheyenne would comfort me if I was depressed. Prince wouldn't leave me alone if sensed I was sad and would sleep in the room and wouldn't leave the room. if I got up to go to the kitchen to eat he would follow.

When I got back from surgery, Bagel refused to leave the bedroom until I was able to get up and move around. Dogs are very sensitive to our mental and physical condition.
 
It's more than that. Completely wild wolves have befriended small adults that they could have killed, in recent years. No reward other than affection, companionship, (and imho satisfying genuine curiosity is part of it)

It's worth noting that behaviorally, we are the most wolflike primate, and dogs are the most primate-like canid. Appears that they changed us as much as we changed them.
 
Another story: I have a friend who got lost on a trail when a bad storm moved in suddenly. They were not set up for overnight stay, and with visibility near zero and trail conditions deteriorating, realized they would not be able to find their way down the mountain safely. Just as they were wondering what to do, their dog ran down the trail a bit and started barking. They started following the old pup, who excitedly led them right back to where they had parked their car. That dog saved their life, and they paid the medical bills to keep him alive as long as possible.
 
My introduction to skiing in copper country was seeing what looked like moguls (bumps in the snow) moving, as I was going uphill on the ski lift.

It was actually a white Husky, and the owner was in the chair ahead of me. His dog would run uphill when he was on the lift, meet him at the top, then turn around and run downhill. Not only would the dog run quicker than his owner skied, (and this is super steep so you ski downhill really fast) but the dog picked better lines than the skier, too. As the evening went on the dog stopped running all the way to the top, and no longer could keep up with the skier going downhill, either; but he never stopped running.

The intelligence of the animal to navigate this was really impressive, not to mention his ability to stay out of the way of other skiers. There's no way the owner trained the dog to do this, but he did have to exert control to prevent the dog from running itself to death.

It was also really cool that the facility let them do this. It was a great introduction to a beautiful part of the world. I've also seen people skijoring across flat-ish ground, which is basically using your dog to pull you as you cross country ski. They use a specialized spring loaded tow rope to avoid too much shock to the dog, evening out the weight they pull.

Dogs doing anything like that are really happy! Dogs will always be happier when you spend a lot of time with them, developing a good relationship
Huskies,love to run.man would run ,and run when it was outside .it would loop the house .I called it fly bys.
 
Huskies,love to run.man would run ,and run when it was outside .it would loop the house .I called it fly bys.





Oh yeah, I know that for sure. One of my dogs was part husky and he loved to escape. He also loved the snow, but of course,.. so did my black Labrador. Man, I sure miss having a dog. :sad Although don't get me wrong, I still love my cat very much and I love giving her kisses and cuddles. :kiss
 
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