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[sunshinelikeacid]

What do you think? Are they as smart as humans?
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[Jubal Sackett]

Dog's don't have the reasoning abilities that humans have but they are very smart. I love being on backpacking trips with my dog. I really pay attention to her in the backcountry, she smells and hears things I don't.She realy goes into a diffrent mode out there. I don't like being out without her.

[Noey]

Though dogs do not have the intellectual capabilities that humans have, they have much stronger senses since they are animals. Because they are predator animals and have the instinct to hunt for their own food, they can smell, hear, and see much better than we humans can. No dogs cannot learn math or human speech the way that mankind can, we cannot learn how to obtain all the senses to the extent that dogs can.

[Canadian FreeSpirit]

anyone who has seen border collies herding, doing agility, flyball, disks, freestyle, etc., can have no doubt at all that that is a very intelligent breed of DOG. we don't use the same scale to rate intelligence in dogs that we do in humans because we are very different species.
but are my dogs smart? you bet they are. any dog can be. you get out of a dog what you put into it.

[WalnutHill]

I have heard that dogs have basically the cognative ability of the average human 2-year-old. Haha, if my experience with my daughter is any test of that theory, dogs are much smarter than that! It seems like my fur babies know exactly what I am saying to them, and they actually listen to my commands, unlike my kids!

[Angel_baby]

Before I started using positive reinforcement I had thought my dogs just weren't the brightest bulbs in the world, they would listen to my commands well but only certain ones whereas now they are learning a variety of different things. They love learning and respond as soon as they see the clicker. They want to work. Now I've heard this argument before and I've involved myself before as well but I have to admit at the time I was at the other end of the rope using Negative reinforcement when it came to behaviors I didn't want instead of rewarding those I wanted. I had my dogs a nervous wreck but they listened..only to certain commands however.

In most of these debates there were others as well who thought their dogs weren't very brilliant because no matter how hard they tried they couldn't get their dogs to listen to them. Sadly though dogs are very brilliant, they learn fast and are eager to learn if you do it right. No, dogs don't think like a human but I'm sure given the chance a dog could certainly do some mind blowing things. I don't underestimate the power of dogs any longer. I refuse to. You just never know what a dog can show you that's new and exciting. I learn things from my dogs as much as I do myself and it is truely amazing to see even dogs who were beaten into fearing their owners turn into such a brilliant and eager animal.

[hanama]

In fact they are very smart!

[Beryl]

Extremely "smart" and may be "smarter" than humans. After all, they can learn human commands but we've yet to consistently learn dog sounds. We may learn what one dog means but that doesn't carry over from dog to dog.

[Sentry]

I do believe they are smart! check out this video!The first dog gets hit and the second dog drags him to safety!!!
Dog Videos

[Rivsky]

Dogs are definitely a hell of a lot smarter than many people give them credit for - and one of my favourite sayings about training with dogs comes from Susan Garrett - she stands by the motto that our dogs are a hell of a lot better at shaping us than we are them which has got to say something for their intelligence. I know River has managed to train me to do certain things without me even realising it

[RedWolf]

I think dogs are very smart...just thinking about my terrier Pooch's problem-solving abilities! If he wanted something and there was some sort of obstacle he would figure out a way to get it on his own, and very quickly. For example he learned how to open the footrest on the lazy-boy recliner in one sitting, when his ball went underneath and he couldn't reach it so he figured out how to open the footrest to get at the ball. After that one time whenever the ball went underneath he immediately would pull open the footrest to get at it.
I was also just posting on another forum about my Golden... I had taught her the way to a friend's house by asking her "Where's Nomi?" whenever we were walking there and then praising her when she chose the right direction, so she quickly learned if I asked "Where's Nomi?" she should lead me to Naomi's house. She had already learned the way to her dog-friend Sasha's house on her own, and also knew the way to her favorite park (if I ever let her choose where to walk, she'd unfailingly lead me to that one park.) So one day Naomi was at my house and I wanted to show her how Ginger knew the way to her house. So we took Ginger out for a walk and I let Ginger lead the way and I asked her "Where's Nomi?" and she seemed to be unsure and sort of hanging back, not like she normally did... So I asked her again "Where's Nomi?" and instead of leading me to Naomi's house she kept looking over to Naomi as if to say "What do you mean? Naomi's right there! We don't need to go all the way to her house!"

[cka233]

Dogs can be very smart but definitely not as smart us human.

[destlecare4]

I do believe they are smart!!
Though dogs do not have the intellectual capabilities that humans have, they have much stronger senses since they are animals........

[mom2cocoa]

I think dogs are very smart. I have lived with dogs literally all of my life. I have two now, and I also happen to have two cats now also. I did not grow up with cats. Anyway, after living with these cats I am beginning to think they are even smarter than dogs. I'll give you an example or two. I have a dog named Cocoa who by most people's standards would be smarter than your average dog. She obeys all her commands and learned most of them on her own too, she understands entire sentences being spoken to her casually, when you do try to teach her something it takes like five minutes tops. So anyway, I say to her one day "daddy's home" like I always do when he pulls in the driveway. Well, this time he was sitting on the couch with her when I said it. She jumped down and ran to the window all excited like her normal routine. Now, here is an example of the cats intelligence. My cat Angel wants to get into my daughters bedroom but the door is closed. Angel stands on her back legs and begins to turn the door knob with her front paws. My dog has never figured out the turn the knob to open the door. I'm sure she would understand if I took the time to teach her and show her. But no one had to teach this to the cat. Another interesting thing. With both my dogs and cats, the girls always seem to be a bit smarter, I think. But maybe it's just a coincidence.