http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995101

LOL, I think all this proves is how smart Border Collies are. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Yeah! Definitely. Maybe they should be reclassified as their own species. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I'd be very interested in looking at the controls they used in the experiment.

Such as scent on the item and if they eliminated the ability for non-verbal direction from the one sending the dog to fetch.

I can point at nearly any object in my home and our male will retrieve it, I can also say nearly any word and he'll do it. Doesn't mean he knows the word or the object. He reads what I'm looking at non-verbally and understands to go get it by my body language. Usually I don't even have to point, just look hard with my eyes and motion with my head.


It is a good party trick. I say bring me the red pillow, and he gets the pillow I'm looking at on our chair. Doesn't know what a pillow is, and couldn't pick out red if his life depended on it. But the body language to him is very direct. With a well trained retrieve and a dog that pays attention to his handler this takes a few days to teach.

Dogs are very good at following non-verbal cues. I've heard it's often easier to train a hand signal first and then associate a spoken command with the signal.

A friend has a dog that does 'math'. Vickie will ask, 'What's the square root of 36'. The dog barks six times. 'What's 7-3?' yields four barks. If you watch Vickie carefully -- a pleasant task -- you will find that when the dog is almost to the right answer, she slightly tilts her head forward and raises her eyebrows. It's almost imperceptable. Essentially, the dog barks until she picks up that cue.

This is known as the 'Clever Hans' effect. ( http://skepdic.com/cleverhans.html ).

I posted the links to the original research paper on the Border Collie in this earlier thread:

http://leerburg.server294.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=147;t=001032

The Kaminski link is by the researchers. Paul Bloom has a more readable discussion of the experiment.

The dog had to go to a separate room to select the article. He would have not been able to pick up cues from the experimenter or owner.

The dog's results were impressive on a couple of points. He was able to understand that he was to fetch a new, unknown object by the context of the command. He was able to pick a new, unknown item from a group of familiar toys. He remembered that new toy and the name for the toy.

For example, assume he already knew to 'Get Ball or Get Bear'. When he got the command to 'Get Bunny', he heard a new word and understood this was a new thing. In the room, he fairly reliably identified the new toy and brought it back.

Now, here is the kicker. When they redid the experiment a few weeks later and said, 'Get Bunny', he remembered the new word and it's association with that toy.

I saw this on the news too. They showed the owner sitting in a room and telling the dog to go get something from the other room. Didn't know what they were saying to the dog-they were speaking German.

I have a question:

For arguements sake, the dog knows what a "ball" is and what a "rope toy" is and maybe what a "bone" is ... you ask for the ball, the dog goes to it, pauses and then runs over and grabs the rope toy (because she would rather play with the rope toy) -- is the dog really not intelligent? How can they tell if the dog made a conscious choice or not?

I mean, if I was told to go get a softdrink out of the fridge for myself and opened the door and saw a beer ... thought about it ... and decided to take the beer instead. When I came back would I be deemed unable to think and reason because I did not follow an order? Afterall, I ended up making my own decision after sizing up the situation.

Just a thought I had with all these "intelligence" tests they do on dogs and stuff ... and it made me ponder .... how can they really know?

mmmmmmmmmmmmm beeeeeerrrrr. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />