The Border Collies rise above the rest in canine intelligence tests.
An interesting report on the Australian TV show Catalyst yesterday documented the changes in the dog brain and behavior versus their canine cousins the Dingo and the Wolf. Dogs were timed in how long it took them to bypass a simple barrier to a food treat.
The general conclusion is that dog brains are 30% smaller than wild canids and that their problem solving skills have been limited as a result. Half of all the dogs given this simple test failed to retrieve the treat after one minute and the ones that succeeded took on average 20-40 seconds. The entire Dingo population solved the problem in under a minute averaging only 10 seconds. Of course, in the examples shown for the program the Border Collies buck this trend and perform the problem solving tasks with little or no deficiency compared to their wild cousins.
In another interesting experiment where the dogs were asked to overcome a barrier that was impossible to overcome, the dogs actually excelled by giving up and turning to the human handler to solve the problem for them. Dingoes attempted the problem for longer before seeking assistance and the Wolves stubbornly persisted on their own.
Is there anything Border Collies don't excel at?
It’s not a great leap to see how this behavior (and human acceptance of this burden) has lead to the proliferation of Dogs and the marginalization and near extinction of Dingoes and Wolves. In return, Dogs have also mastered the ability to read human intent–demonstrated on the program by the ability to decipher their owner’s pointing hand with ease (a task which both wild canids and even chimps are deficient at)–and thus are easier to train and interact with.
The entire segment and transcript is available here.
* * *
Comments and disagreements are welcome, but be sure to read the Comment Policy. If this post made you think and you'd like to read more like it, consider a donation to my 4 Border Collies' Treat and Toy Fund. They'll be glad you did. You can subscribe to the feed or enter your e-mail in the field on the left to receive notice of new content. You can also like BorderWars on Facebook for more frequent musings and curiosities.
* * *
Dingoes have the same size brain as domestic dogs do, as do Southern wolves.
It’s only the big game hunting wolves that have the much larger brains.
Here’s a little bit better series of studies:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1026/p17s02-sten.html
It has to do with permission. Dogs will not problem solve if they feel it’s against our wishes.
retrieverman recently posted..Irish wolfhound-mastiff mix
“It has to do with permission. Dogs will not problem solve if they feel it’s against our wishes.”
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Jess recently posted..Kirghiz Tazis in France- 1885
Probably why hunting dogs excel at problem-solving. 😉
Dave recently posted..Things Riley Ate- Coffee Table
The Csanyi studies there were extreme differences between dogs that were trained and lived in the house versus outdoor dogs. Outdoor dogs problem solved but never learned to following pointing.
retrieverman recently posted..The English red decoy dog
“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.”
This has been replicated elsewhere with larger n’s.
retrieverman recently posted..The English red decoy dog
“It has to do with permission. Dogs will not problem solve if they feel it’s against our wishes.”
I have to second Jess’s laughter, lol! I think it depends on the dogs! My guardians & hounds have no problem whatsoever figuring things out for themselves, whether I’ve granted them permission or not! X-D
Anna recently posted..RokGallery Template Integration
I’ve never been convinced that wolves are smarter than dogs.
The specialized ones in the northern continents have bigger brains. Neanderthals had bigger brains and higher encephalization quotients than we do.
But we are much smarter.
The 30 percent brain size varies, too. Some dogs, it’s just 10 percent.
retrieverman recently posted..Irish wolfhound-mastiff mix
Yes, of course. The news story is a major simplification of what’s actually going on. There’s imply no way that a Chihuahua can have a brain that’s the same size as a Retriever or a Mastiff.
The other issue they gloss over is that it’s some sort of zero-sum trade off. It’s clear from the results that Border Collies aren’t that limited in problem solving skills, but they are clearly more advanced than wolves and most dogs in reading humans. The old “if you can’t have IQ, have EQ” game is being played with dogs instead of humans.
Well, in reality, some people are simply superior in almost all respects. There’s no universal equalizer. I think we’d agree that Pugs are a good example of a breed that is deficient in almost all respects. They are physically stunted, mentally stunted, generally unhealthy and with not a whole lot of benefit to show to balance any of that out.
Don’t be a hater! Love the Pug!
I am just joking of coarse. I make fun of some breeds myself. Sometimes I get grief from people for complaining at how dangerous Pit Bulls are.
http://faculty.washington.edu/jcha/330_dog_social_cognition.pdf
I think this is the one animal where domestication enhanced intelligence.
retrieverman recently posted..Irish wolfhound-mastiff mix
Yes, I don’t think this is much of a stretch, at least for the breeds where we’ve required more from them, not less, during domestication.
There are plenty of breeds where we have required less instead of more. Be less active. Be less demanding. Be less powerful. Be less independent.
But what about Retrievers? They have a very complex relationship with humans. We ask them to put up with stimulus that no wild animal would. We ask them to be kind and gentle. We ask them to follow our directions and perform complex behaviors. To go and fetch a bird that it’d rather eat and give it to us freely.
What about Border Collies? We ask them to retain the stalking behavior but remove the kill. We want them to listen to us instead of run from us. Although “EQ” is often used as an escape valve for people who feel threatened by IQ, there’s a lot of brain power that has to go into interacting and understanding humans that wolves simply are incapable of doing at the same level as the dog.
Chows and the old poi dogs from Polynesia probably haven’t had their intelligence improved.
But even hunting scent hounds have to be fairly smart. They have know which prey species to chase, and if it’s a raccoon or a fox, they have to know all of its tricks. Wolves kill raccoons and foxes, but not as their sole prey species. They don’t learn all the tricks of the raccoon or the fox in the same way those hounds do.
In Coppinger’s book, there are actual monkey hounds on Pemba.
retrieverman recently posted..Irish wolfhound-mastiff mix
It seems the more diverisfied domestication requirements of individual breeds likely has the stronger impact on degree of intelligence. I have noted over the years that a younger dog will learn if willing from another. I agree understanding the intelligence of some dogs often challenges the human to be smarter than they are.
http://www.amazon.com/If-Dogs-Could-Talk-Exploring/dp/0865476861
This book changed my perspective on the whole issue.
retrieverman recently posted..Irish wolfhound-mastiff mix
http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/lydia/doggies_science.pdf
retrieverman recently posted..Irish wolfhound-mastiff mix
Interesting video and great discussion (and links). While the results of the behavior tests are fun to watch, it’s difficult to gain real insight from them – what action is really the result of cognition? There is so much to learn about the human-dog relationship, but as the owner of a 90% dependent, 10%-brain Pug, all I can say is “D’oh!” (And, if I were the owner of the cowboy-hat-wearing cattle dog, I wouldn’t be feeling too superior, either.)
Lynne recently posted..The Tennis Ball Oath
Yes, good thing is that what we saw in the video is a recreation of a real study. The procedure we saw wasn’t very scientific. And I’m hard on Pugs for having no face, but I’ve seen some clever ones during agility training that wouldn’t have been so defeatist as the one in the video.
I had a purebred mutt: Akita x (Malamute/Great Pyrenees) (the sire is listed first)
(Pardon my ignorance on matters of pedigree)
He was a superb animal – and largely of the livestock guardian temperament. LGDs can indeed understand what you want them to do, they simply won’t do so on command. OTOH – he was a superb problem solver. He once had the boxer next door attempting to swipe the bone he was going to have a nice sit down with. Instead giving the boxer a serious dose of canine smack down, he went to the wooden fence, dug a hole and buried the bone.
Then he walked away.
The boxer took some seconds to consider his good fortune and then proceeded to dig. By this time, my dog had circled around the other side of the fence and quickly excavated the bone from that side. He then walked off, lay down and proceeded to enjoy. The boxer did not pursue the matter further.
I had a good laugh watching from the window.