A recent essay by award-winning science writer Emily Anthes titled “In Defense of Dumb Dogs: Your Pet Is (Probably) Not a Genius, and That’s OK” has generated countless e-mails, texts, and in-person comments and discussions, so I decided it would be helpful to: (1) figure out what Anthes was saying (or at least, what I think he wrote, which some people seem to have read carefully), (2) about dog behavior. other myths, and (4) explains why cross-species comparisons about the cognitive and emotional lives of animals, including comparing dogs and other animals to humans at different ages, are fraught with error.
I found Anthes’s essay important and thought-provoking, and I decided to write this post because just yesterday four people asked me, “Would you like to write something about who dogs really are and how we should be very careful about labeling them as ‘dumb’?” they asked the question. One of them said, “Isn’t the real problem that most people are dog illiterate and don’t know dogs well?”
Anthes’s main message is best expressed in his last paragraph:
In fact, what makes dogs so special is their ability to form these relationships with us—bonds so strong that we all believe our canine companions are leading the pack. Watson may not know his hedgehog toy from his stuffed turtle, but he is—and I say this with meticulous journalistic impartiality—the best.
The importance of debunking dog myths
There are many myths about dogs that are repeated as often as the truth. Popularized by many media and dog researchers, they are our best friends, they are unconditional lovers, they live in the moment, they do not express dominance, there are no alpha dogs, they should not sleep in the bed with us, all dog parks are bad, we should not give them human food, radio and television should be replaced.1
Dogs that become mute can, in fact, be bored, emphasized because of the conditions of captivity in which they were forced to liveor may be misunderstood by people who are not “dog fluent” or “dog literate”.
Who is smarter than whom?
In an interview in 2013 Scientific American, dog expert Dr. Brian Hare, co-author The genius of dogs With Vanessa Wood and the founder of Duke Canine Perception From the Center: “What’s the biggest misconception people have about dogs?” His answer: That there are “smart” dogs and “dumb” dogs… There is still a return to the one-dimensional version. intelligenceas if there is only one type of mind that you have more or less.
The rabbit is on the sign. Dogs and other animals have multiple intelligences and individual differences are to be expected. Differences are the rule, not the exception. Research has shown that many different variables can affect a dog’s performance in a laboratory setting, and I often wonder how the information gathered in controlled experiments translates to dogs in real life, as dogs run around in dog parks and elsewhere, coping with changing social contexts and physical environments.
The word “intelligence” generally refers to a person’s ability to acquire knowledge and use it to adapt to various situations, perform various tasks, and do what is necessary for survival. A friend of mine once told me about some free-roaming dogs he knew in a small town in Mexico who were street-smart and could survive harsh conditions, but didn’t listen very well to people. Some were adept at finding and grabbing food and escaping from dog hunters, bad dogs and people. Some were good at “playing” people for food, others were not. On the contrary, I know some smart, cunning and adaptable dogs who were not street smart and probably couldn’t do it in this environment. However, some of the people I share the house with would steal my food and the other dog’s food in a heartbeat without either of us knowing what was going on.
Which dogs were “smart” and which were “stupid”? No, of course. Relatively speaking, these dogs were equally intelligent, but they adapted their intelligence to different circumstances. Outside of these contexts, they can seem pretty “dumb” to us. I’ve lived with and met enough dogs to know that saying one is smarter than another is usually a misrepresentation of who they are.
The questions I get asked frequently are about species differences in intelligence – for example, are dogs smarter than cats, or birds smarter than fish? I always say that animals have to do what they have to do to be who they are “card-carrying” representatives of their speciesand we must bear in mind that many non-humans are superior to us in various ways, so that the question of comparing different species is of little importance to me. So I really like what Hare and Woods write about this topic:
“A cognitive approach celebrates different types of intelligence and frees us from the idea that intelligence is a linear scale with sea sponges at the bottom and humans at the top. Asking whether a dolphin is smarter than a crow is like asking whether a hammer is better than a saw. Which tool is better depends on the task at hand or whether animals have to survive routinely. multiply.”
But people still ask me, “What about dogs that act really stupid?” Are there really no stupid dogs? Once again, we must be careful in characterizing dogs in this way. One of my favorite quotes about how we relate to other animals comes from the Hungarian anatomist János Szentágotái, who famously stated: There are no “unintelligent” animals, only careless observations and poorly designed experiments. We have long known that dogs are not brain dead creatures or dumb wolves.
In January 2017, Jan Hoffman wrote “Essay”.People learn new tricks to judge how smart dogs are.” A quote from dog researcher Dr. Clive Wynn caught my attention: “We really need love for our dogs. My dog is a fool, but he is a lovable fool.’
Coda: It is important to understand and appreciate the individual differences in intelligence between dogs and other animals
Calling a dog stupid is wrong, and comparisons between species are misleading. I know it’s nice to say eye-rolling things like calling a dog a dummy, but it’s also very misleading.
It’s time we stop using such words and comparisons and focus on the dogs persons. not really”dog,” and one of the most exciting things about studying the cognitive and emotional lives of dogs and other animals is how much individual variation there is between members of the same species.
