[ SHOWGSD-L ] Re: [amergsd] Why your dog is smarter than a wolf
- From: Elsyd1@xxxxxxx
- To: showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:45:10 EST
My experience was somewhat different.I was given three 3/4 wolf hybrids.
They were put in a kennel of similar age GSD's. The kennel interior opened into
another yard, and the pups (and cubs) found their way to the other yard, which
was parallel to their own yard. I was still in the first yard. The GSD pups
all screamed and yelled and tried to get to me by throwing themselves on the
chain link fence. The wolfies immediately went back the way they came, and
were giving me kisses while the others just howled and cried on the other
side.
I taught all three to sit and down in less than five minutes. (alright, they
rolled on their backs, but they were DOWN, LOL). They showed time after time
an accelerated rate of learning. Maybe they were super wolves, but I doubt
it. I had to place them in a haven when they started walking on the seven foot
kennel roofs without so much as a running start jump as teenage pups. Syd
In a message dated 1/19/2006 3:11:18 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
mountainmomma@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1026/p17s02-sten.html
Why your dog is smarter than a wolf By Colin Woodard | Correspondent of The
Christian Science Monitor BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - At Eotvos Lorand University's
Department of Ethology, visitors are usually greeted not by a security
guard, but by a delegation of friendly mongrels, tails wagging. Dogs have
the run of the place. They play in classrooms, visit faculty members in
their offices, or nap in the laboratories. Animals here are no surprise -
ethology is the zoological study of animal behavior - but the total lack of
cages is.
And why would there be, asks research fellow Adam Miklosi, who leads much of
the research here into the cognitive abilities of man's best friend.
"If you were studying human behavior, you wouldn't keep your subjects in a
cage for 20 years and then ask them some questions?"
he asks with a smile. "These are animals who've been brought up in a normal
way, which allows us to see and understand them in their natural
environment, which is the human environment."
After a decade studying dogs in their human habitat, Mr. Miklosi and his
colleagues have accumulated a body of evidence suggesting that dogs have far
greater mental capabilities than scientists had thought. Dogs' smarts, it
turns out, come out in their relationships with people.
The implications of this research are more esoteric than the average dog
owner may appreciate. The research doesn't exactly mean that dogs and their
masters can enjoy Chaucer together, but it does mean scientists have reason
to consider what dog-human communications may say about language skills
development.
Another implication is that dogs may make better cognitive study subjects
than primates, which have been the focus of the field thus far.
Until recently, domestication was thought to have dulled dogs' intelligence.
Studies in the early 1980s showed that wolves, from which dogs probably
descended, can unlock a gate after watching a human do it once, while dogs
remained stumped after watching repeatedly.
That never sat well with Vilmos Csanyi, the recently retired head of Mr.
Miklosi's department. Mr. Csanyi, who had dogs of his own, suspected the
dogs were awaiting permission to open the gate, that they regarded opening
the gate as a violation of their master's rules.
In 1997, Csanyi and his colleagues tested 28 dogs of various ages, breeds,
and closeness to their owners, to see if they could learn to obtain cold
cuts on the other side of a fence by pulling on the handles of dishes while
their owners were present. Dogs with a close relationship to their owners
fared worse than outdoor dogs. But when the dogs' owners were allowed to
give the animals verbal permission, the gap between the groups vanished.
Since then, Csanyi's team has demonstrated just how much dogs can accomplish
by paying attention to people. In one classic experiment on dogs' use of
human visual cues, food is hidden in one of several scent-proof containers.
The animal is allowed to choose only one.
Beforehand, the experimenter signals the correct choice by staring, nodding,
or pointing at it. Chimpanzees, humans' closest genetic relatives, have
always done poorly at this test. Dogs solved the problem immediately.
Dogs also excel at imitating people. In one of the laboratories, graduate
student Zsofia Viranyi demonstrates with Todor, an enthusiastic little mutt.
Todor sits attentively as Ms. Viranyi spins around in a circle and comes to
a stop. "Csinal," she says.
("You do it!") Todor does a little 360 on the tiled floor and lets out an
enthusiastic bark. He easily imitates Viranyi's bow, lifting of an arm, and
other tasks.
The team found that some dogs can even imitate previously unseen actions
performed by a person they haven't had close contact with.
Other dogs learned how to operate a simple ball-dispensing machine by
watching people use it.
"We thought it would be very difficult for dogs to imitate humans,"
Csanyi says, Chimps have great difficulty doing so, even with their larger
brains. "But it turns out [dogs] love to do it. This is not a little
thing, because they must pay attention to the person's actions, remember
them, and then apply them to their own body."
Dogs' unusual ability and motivation to observe, imitate, and communicate
with people appears to be with them from birth. Two years ago, Csanyi's
graduate students were given either a puppy or a wolf cub to raise. They
fed the animals by hand, coddling and doting on them.
At five weeks, each cub was placed in a room containing an adult and the
student who had raised the cub. Both sat motionless. But while the wolf
cubs merely sniffed both humans before climbing into the student's lap to
sleep, the puppies yipped at their caregivers, licking their hands and
trying to establish contact.
Three months later, the canines were given the opportunity to try to remove
a piece of meat from under a cage by pulling on a rope in the presence of
their caregiver. Dogs and wolves both mastered this promptly. Then the
rope was anchored, making it impossible to obtain the meat. The dogs tried
a couple of times, then turned to their masters for assistance or cues. The
wolves ignored their caregivers, yanking on the rope until exhausted.
"The wolves ... were only interested in the meat," notes Miklosi. "The
dogs were of course interested in the meat, but knew that one way to get it
might be to figure out what the human wants them to do."
To Csanyi, this proves that dogs have acquired an innate ability to pay
attention to people, and thus to communicate and work with them.
This is a skill that wolves don't assume even when raised from birth to
learn it.
Dogs are "very motivated to cooperate with and behave like people,"
says Csanyi. "That's why dogs can do things no other animal can do."
Yvette
Syd Mailberg 425-432-4144
23910 SE 276th St
Maple Valley, Wa. 98038
Animal portraiture
www.kingswoodgermanshepherds.homestead.com
============================================================================
POST is Copyrighted 2005. All material remains the property of the original
author and of GSD Communication, Inc. NO REPRODUCTIONS or FORWARDS of any kind
are permitted without prior permission of the original author AND of the
Showgsd-l Management. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
ALL PERSONS ARE ON NOTICE THAT THE FORWARDING, REPRODUCTION OR USE IN ANY
MANNER OF ANY MATERIAL WHICH APPEARS ON SHOWGSD-L WITHOUT THE EXPRESS
PERMISSION OF ALL PARTIES TO THE POST AND THE LIST MANAGEMENT IS EXPRESSLY
FORBIDDEN, AND IS A VIOLATION OF LAW. VIOLATORS OF THIS PROHIBITION WILL BE
PROSECUTED.
For assistance, please contact the List Management at admin@xxxxxxxxxxxx
VISIT OUR WEBSITE - http://www.showgsd.org
============================================================================
Other related posts:
