Posted on 11/24/2016 9:28:45 AM PST by MtnClimber
Once again, science has confirmed the suspicions of dog-owners that their beloved pets know more than they are letting on. In this case, it has to do with memory, a favorite subject of researchers who study the mental abilities of other animals.
No one doubts that dogs can be trained to remember commands and names of objects. They also remember people and places. But Claudia Fugazza and her colleagues at the Family Dog Project at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest set out to see whether dogs share a more complex kind of memory.
In people it is called episodic memory, and it involves a sense of self. In animals, its called episodic-like memory, because its difficult to try to plumb something as elusive as self without the aid of language.
All attempts to understand thinking and memory in nonverbal animals are difficult, and Dr. Fugazza, Adam Miklosi and Akos Pogany developed a technique that depends on something called Do-as-I-do training, which itself is pretty amazing.
In this training, dogs learn to imitate any action the trainer takes. First the trainer does something like touch an open umbrella with his hand. Then he says, Do it. Then the dog taps the umbrella with its paw assuming the training is going well.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My dogs are smarter than liberals!
Does it remember where I put my keys?
Every click through to the NYT generates revenue for them. Thanks, but I’ll pass.
But are they capable of being *thankful*?
No, but a common trainer trick is to throw your car keys about 100 feet into the brush and have the dog find it.
Mine knows where I left my reading glasses. Unfortunately, I don’t realize that until I hear the crunching.
When I was a kid my dog would leave physics equations on a piece of paper that he banged out overnight.
Pbbbbt. My dogs would just flip the trainer off in their minds. Their ears might perk up for a second or two but then they’d go right back to curling up on the couch.
...true story....I worked nites for Intel. Was putting on makeup one afternoon when our cocker spaniel, Gus, came into room..I casually said, “hey Gus, where’s my watch?” I hadn’t been able to find it for a few days. He left, and I didn’t think more about it, was just making conversation. ..next thing I know he comes trotting into the room...WITH MY WATCH. Gus was very smart, but a terror.
If you hadn’t dug up that cartoon I would have! Perfect.
-PJ
My Boston/French Bull is very good at learning similar to this, also good at vocabulary. The idiot Pug is a Hitler clone and dumb as a post. The Pug only knows what he wants.
By the way, Happy and reflective Thanksgiving all.
We had a Golden Retriever named Molly. One day as I was going through the mail, I gave her a piece of junk mail and said, "Molly, throw this in the garbage." Sure as shootin', she walked over to the garbage can and dropped it in. We made such a fuss over it, I think we scared her and we could never get her to do it again.
*Ping*
No. But if you attach a soup bone to your keys, he can probably find them for you.
Well, hell, if I’m going to do that, I might as well just attach a pork chop to them. Then I’d never misplace them in the first place.
Attach a soup bone an I could find em
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