I agree that many dogs have an excellent memory. It’s my personal opinion that their memory is so good, that to THEM, life is just one long day interrupted by naps. Why do I think this? I’ll give just one example.
When I got my dog, she was a teeny puppie and very small, short legged. She was too small to be able to reach to go up and down stairs, AND she was afraid of heights, too.
I carried her down to the area I wanted her to use to potty, and this area had a tar curb on one side. The curb was about 8 or nine inches in height, so when she finished she checked out the curb. She was afraid to jump from where she stood, to the driveway despite it only being a few inches tall. I showed her how to reach with her front paws so she could get down the curb. She caught on.
Fast forward 3 years. I took her to the lake but the place were at had a high embankment to climb down to get to the water. She stood there looking at the embankment, looked at the water (she loves to swim) and looked at me...looked back at the embankment and obviously tried to figure out how to get down to the water. Suddenly, she reached out a timid paw..felt the ground. Then she reached out the second paw to feel some more...she remembered. She was only 5 weeks old when I taught her how to do that, and she only did it a few times as she quickly grew to where she didn’t need to reach. But here she was, 3 years old, and she was doing the reaching with her paws exactly as i taught her, in the order that she’d been taught.
I taught my daugher’s dogs some things when they were pups. Years would go buy, and they remembered what they were taught, and who taught them.
Dogs have much better memories than they’re given credit for.
Interesting my dog was a rescue dog that my wife picked up at the ahelter.
This was 5 years ago just a scruffy little mutt that seems to be part Terrier and maybe poodle. Anyway to this day his heart is only for my wife. He doesn’t dislike the rest f us but everything he does is dor her. Now as it were she ended up contracting cancer and it went Stage 4 so he is an excellent companion for her. But the preference for her pre-dates the cancer, I really think he remembers who saved her. Plus my sons and I aren’t little and he seems to be scared of men as if something bad happened before.