So, we went out to run errands and decided we’d leave the dogs in the backyard while we were out. The weather was nice, and we figured they’d rather be outside where they could run around rather than be cooped up in the house the whole time.
The dogs were overly excited as we tried going out the gate. They were probably thinking that they were going with us instead of being left behind. As soon as we got out the gate they all crowded up to it, trying to get out. Magdalena is big enough that she can put her paws on the top of the gate. We were afraid she would leap over the top and come running after us. We told her ‘no!’ several times. She sort of leapt a little as if she was going over the top but never quite made it. She couldn’t seem to figure out how to get her back feet up so she would clear the top.
I would think that his would be a natural problem for dogs to solve. I’ve seen plenty of dogs that have leapt over fences. I’ve also seen plenty of them try to dig under them as well. Maybe it is just big dogs, but they just can’t seem to grasp the concept of getting over something.
My sister’s dogs had the same problem. I was visiting her at her house a number of years back. She’s always had several dogs at any given time, and usually a few cats as well. On this visit, my sister was having a social function at her house (I don’t recall what at the moment) but she had the dogs penned in the kitchen. She had a little divider between the kitchen and living room, where all the social things were happening.
I was in the kitchen with the dogs. Now, all the dogs were big enough that they could stand at the divider and watch the people in the other room. Their heads were at a height just over the divider. None of them seemed to understand that with very little effort they could get over and go into the living room, be with all the people, and more importantly, get all the snacks.
One of my sister’s cats came strolling in from the backyard, crossed the kitchen, got to the divider, hopped over the divider, and wandered onwards to someplace else in the house. The dogs watched this happen. And yet, none of them got the idea about how to hop over. They just stayed in the kitchen and hoped that someone with snacks would come by and give them some.
I suppose they could be trained easily enough to do it but I wonder why they don’t figure it out on their own. Is this a valid indication of the level of dog intelligence? Probably not. Dogs have very good associative mental processes, but they don’t have as good reasoning processes. If you make a hand gesture enough times and they finally associate it with sitting down, and get a reward when they do, that’s associative learning. If they have to figure out how to walk a certain path to get to their favorite toy, they don’t do as well. That’s reasoning.
I know dogs can be trained to do all sorts of tasks. They are probably more intelligent than most people give them credit for. So, why can’t they figure this out?
Anyway, when we finally got back home, there were all three of our beasts, sitting by the gate, staring at us, tails wagging a mile a minute. I wonder if they had been there the whole time like that, or if they’d gone off to play, chase squirrels (or rabbits), and came back because they heard the car coming up the road?
I hope that all the dogs in your life, should you have any, are doing well, my Hordeling.
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