Does your dog ever do stuff that freaks you out?

[eric]

I mean freak you out in a good way, because you suddenly realize just how intelligent they are, that they have an excellent memory, are capable of abstract thinking and decision making.

The one thing that Sam does that blows my mind is this:

We have a toy box in the living room where we keep all the dog toys. Typically, it will be evening and we'll just be sitting on the sofa watching TV with the boys at our feet.

Suddenly, Sam will get up and head over to to the toy box. He then proceeds to pick toys up out of the box, one at a time, and put them down on the floor, until he finds the toy he wants. If he doesn't find the toy he has in mind in the box, he'll start looking around the house for the toy. And its not the same toy everytime (i.e.: he's looking for a favorite toy).

He'll then either take it over to me or Travis to play.

I had watched him do this a number of times without fully realizing what was going on. Then one night I watched him do this and it occured the intelligence involved in this process.

As far as I can tell, he's lying there kinda bored and he decides that he wants to play, and he knows that if he gets a toy out I or Travis will play with him. So he gets up and decides which toy he wants to get, say his tennis ball. He gets up and goes to where he knows we keep the toys, and starts looking for his tennis ball. If he can't find it in the top layer, he then starts removing toys to look deeper. He finds his tennis ball

This is extremely complicated thinking. First of all, it means he's thinking abstractly. He knows the tennis ball exists even though he can't see it. Secondly, it means he has memory. He remembers that he has a tennis ball toy, and he knows where its usually kept. Finally, it means he's actively making decisions and not just reacting instinctively to external stimulus. There is a conscious decision making process going on.

If her were just picking the first toy out of the box, I wouldn't think as much of it, but he's actively going through the box looking for a particular toy.

[mouseatthebusstop]

:) reading your post made me think of Paddy and Gladis they both have their own toys they know who owns what. If Paddy wants to play by himself he plays with one of his own. If he has one of Gladis's squeaky ones he knows if he squeaks it over and over again she will come running to play with him. :)

[Carolk9s]

Some people think dogs cannot problem solve. HA! With the proper motivation they can.
Dogs come up with me in the recliner for cuddles now and then. I'd have Brittany in my lap, Jesse would decide her time was up and it was his turn. First he'd just stare at her trying to make her move. I was on to him and would encourage her to relax and stay. So he'd ratchet up the pressure, he'd grab a toy and start prancing about with it. He'd figured out this was an invitation she just could not resist. As soon as she would jump down to play, he'd leap up in my lap. I swear he grinned.
Jesse is very much the fetcher also. This is almost a party trick, if we are somewhere and he thinks we should be going, he will go get my purse. He did this at the chiro vets office the other day. We were talking about his treatment, he grabbed my purse off the floor and went to the door. He was done.

[gooeydog]

I'm not sure if this counts as problem solving, but it definitely seems systematic... sometimes if I'm really late getting home from school, or if I stay somewhere else for a night, Goo decides to "redecorate". I come home to find most of the clothes that used to hang in my closet laying on my bed, the pillows that used to be on my bed on the floor, and sometimes Goo stretched out on top of the clothes :roll: My closet door doesn't close all the way, and there's a crack about 1 1/2" wide, so it appears that she digs at it to get the doors open, then starts "rearranging". She also "collects" things from around the house (usually in my room) and drags them under the bed (her hiding place). She's never chewed any of the things up, so I think maybe she just gets a little bored if I'm not home on time, and decides to occupy herself. She's also opened the rubbermaid tub I keep all the spare toys in and helped herself to them. She doesn't usually play with the other dogs, but if she wants me to play and I ignore her, she'll start crashing into them and get them all mad and fighting with each other, then when I get up to yell at them/seperate them, she runs over and crashes into me. I usually end up playing with her after all that :lol:
Annie "plots" ways to get her toys when I put them up... I sat on on a big shelf by our shed once, and she ran into the shed, climbed some junk, and came out the window, grabbing the toy as she went. Other than that, she doesn't really do much out of the ordinary (she'll do anything to get a toy though, so sometimes it's interesting to watch her trying to figure it out). I think Casey and Joey are to lazy to plot.

[bk_blue]

BK's favourite toy was the axe which he used to pick up and swing around when he was really hyperactive... nothing else would do... on other occasions he would pick the axe as his "toy" (he was never into toys or balls or frisbees) and get up on the outside table and chew the handle while sunbaking. I had a semi flat soccer ball that I gave to BK as a toy and he used to prance around the yard with it in front of Rinny to make him get up and chase him. Rin's favourite toy was the tennis ball and every so often BK would beat Rinny to it and get the ball to make him jealous (Bk never chases balls!); he would never bring it back but run off with it and start tearing it to bits while Rinny would look at me sadly.
My friend's Border Collie, Jake, woke her up one night barking and carrying on like there was a robber in the backyard... turned out he was barking at his new bed she'd put in his kennel, he didn't like it at all and refused to go inside his kennel until she got rid of it and gave him back his stinky worn out bed.

[Shannon_C]

What gets up my nose is when Penny my Border Collie/Springer Spaniel is outside in the garden, she will go and toilet then she will come straight back to the door (the patio) and stand there looking in, (sometimes she doesn't notice me sitting there because we have a voile up the patio doors)I have noticed that if i ignore her she will suddenly start scratching and then stop to see if i am watching her....then start again....there isn't any problems with her skin, she doesnt have fleas...she is very healthy but she does have this attention seeking habit of scratching herself when she becomes bored.....it doesnt matter how many times you play ball with her (favourite) she keeps doing it...and it gets to the point where i have to tell her off which i dont like to.

[bk_blue]

Mei-Mei napisał(a):

I have a friend whose German Shepherd used to ring the doorbell to come in the house. No one ever taught her this behavior; she just picked it up on her own. Can you imagine the first time he went to the door and it was the dog? :lol:

:lol: Clever!! I wish Blitz knew how to do that. When he used to escape and go up the park in the mornings he would come back and bark at the front door to be let in, if only we'd had a doorbell I could have trained him to use it!

[eric]

Now that's funny. Sitting down to have dinner, doorbell rings. You get up, to answer the door. Oh, its the dog. "Honey, its for you"

My Shepherd used to do something similar, but in reverse. We had hung some wind chimes off the handle to the patio door so that they could signal us when they wanted to go out. Travis figured it out right away and would nudge the chimes when he had to go out. He started abusing it though, nudging it whenever he wanted to go out, not when he needed to go out.

Mei-Mei napisał(a):

I have a friend whose German Shepherd used to ring the doorbell to come in the house. No one ever taught her this behavior; she just picked it up on her own. Can you imagine the first time he went to the door and it was the dog? :lol:

[Guest Anonymous]

wanker knows instinctively the difference between babies and adults. as for kittens, puppies, and all other baby animals, he is very gentle. but the true test comes with human babies. when my neice or myself, or my fiance, or any other adult plays with him, he is quite aggressive and strong. however, even if my two year old nephew is slapping him in the face or biting his ears (behaviors that by the way do not sit well with ME), wanker will lovingly squint his eyes, and lick little pauli. i can only discern that he knows that this is a fragile baby, and that Pauli is unaware of the pain he is inflicting.

[Aroura]

Mei-Mei napisał(a):

I have a friend whose German Shepherd used to ring the doorbell to come in the house. No one ever taught her this behavior; she just picked it up on her own. Can you imagine the first time he went to the door and it was the dog? :lol:

That reminds me of a dog that followed me home years ago. When I got home I left it out the front, she wouldn't leave. Then next thing you know, we heard the door bell and went out to see who it was and it was just the dog! I'll never forget that, it was so funny :wink:

Anyway, both my dogs are very smart, although I can't think of anything in particular that freaked me out (there have been plenty of things though, just got a mental blank) there's also alot of things they do that are smart. Particulary Tessa. Anytime I take her on a walk, if we walk past a house that I've stopped by even once two years ago she will sit at the gate and wait for me to catch up so we can go in. She's got the best memory of any dog I've ever known, she always knows where she's left the ball and if we go for a walk and she has a stick that she leaves behind, guarenteed if I walk her 3 weeks later she will go straight to that stick, pick it up and want me to throw it. Even if we're walking a different path, she'll wonder off and find it straight away.
Oh, and there's that time I told her to cross the road when a car was coming, the car was slowing for us and I ran across with Puddles and Lily and when I turned back Tessa was waiting on the other side until the car passed!
Lily hasn't done that many things to spin me out, but she's not even a year old yet so I guess she hasn't had as much time with me, but she does spin me out sometimes just by being so good at obedience and learning so fast. Also the way she observes things, she'll just sit and watch things for hours until she figures it out. She's learnt how to open the sunroom door just by watching us, and when she kept letting herself out and we started locking it she learnt how to unlock it. Whenever I take her to other peoples houses I always sleep with her on the bed so I know when she gets up, because otherwise she'd probably let herself out and get hit by a car! Also when we go swimming there's a bar attached to a rope that people swing off into the water, its impossible for her to grab, but she just sits and looks at it for ages, like her minds ticking over and she's trying to work out how to use it.
Oh, and Tessa is usually a bit crazy around little kids, once when we went to Gosford we left her with my Uncle who's son was 5 years old and has alot of disabilitys, including autism and heaps of other stuff. Well, Tessa formed a special bond with him, he would sleep in her kennel and tug her ears while she was eating etc and she just loved him. At the christmas party at grandmas and grandpas they brought her and Jake (my cousin) had wondered off, he always does this but this time no one could find him. We were kind of between the bush, a road and a bay so we were getting kind of worried so I said to Tess "find Jake". She knows the "find" command, and had learnt Jakes name and led us straight to him. He wasn't too far, just in the bush near the house but Tessa was the hero of the day :angel:

[Ickle]

My Denzil has had a knitted Humpty Dumpty since he was a baby it is the only toy he does not chew, (he sucks it like a baby's bottle)
I see it as a kind of barometer of whether he likes visitors to the property or not.
When they come into the house he runs up to them & has a quick sniff round and if he thinks they are good people he fetches his best friend Humpty to be introduced .
He has only declined to do this on four occasions & I must admit I was not happy about these people either.Needless to say they were not allowed to have any of my rescue dogs. (Denzil obviously agreed)
Ickle

[Guest roo]

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