This article recounts studies which indicate that dogs excel at learning by imitating humans. Chimps, with greater innate intelligence, have a very hard time doing this. Neither do wolves have this ability.

They also seem to seek our approval. One interesting experiment involved seeing if dogs could pull a pot containing cold cuts through the fence. Dogs (house dogs) having close relationship with their owners didn't do as well as outdoor dogs. Once the owner's gave the house dogs verbal permission, the performance gap disappeared.

Another part of the study sheds light on why wolves aren't just dogs with a different lifestyle. They learned that dogs have an innate ability to pay attention to humans. That's a skill that wolves never acquire even when they have been raised from birth by people.

I suspect this may be part of the reason that the way Bernhard Flinks trains is often sucessful. The dog learns that he can make the person pay attention to him by presenting specific behaviors. Then he gets approval in the form of praise and a toy.

No cheap comments about how your dog learned 'certain grooming habits'. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/26/tech/main981130.shtml

Charlie,
You post some cool articles, but you out-did yourself with this one.
Cool...just cool!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Domestic dogs learn from each other, why shouldn't they do the same with us? Good article!

Thanks. That article really caught my eye.

Did some more digging on the net and came up with other articles about Vilmos Csányi and his research. Many of the citations are in Hungarian. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

He also wrote a book, "If Dogs Could Talk" that explores the canine cognitive behavior. Local library doesn't have it. However, I'm going to see if they have it available on interlibrary loan. It may be interesting. There has to be a training insight buried in their somewhere.

Detroit Free Press Article -- "WHAT DOES FIDO KNOW?"
http://www.freep.com/features/living/webdog16e_20050316.htm

Mmmmm...I will have to take a look in my own library for that one, too. Very interesting.

Sort of puts the Stanley Coren hype to bed, doesn't it? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />