In my last blog entry I posited that one of the building blocks of the way we train is the assumption that dogs can reason. What makes me so sure? I suppose one answer is that I’ve seen so many dogs trained using this assumption that it must be true.
More seriously though, let me answer the question of what I mean by “reason”. I would say that reason, in its most basic form, is the if/then proposition. “If I ring the bells on the back door, then someone will let me out.” “If my owner looks in the mirror and then grabs her pocketbook and keys, then maybe she’ll take me with her in the car.” This is by no means evidence of high intelligence in dogs but it is evidence that they make clear associations between one event and another. In training this often is all you need. How many times have I heard a client who has recently begun training say, “So he really isn’t as stupid as we thought?”
What is really neat is when dogs show evidence of more complex reasoning. Some years ago we had a middle-aged Airedale name Zach and a Rottweiler puppy named Molly. They loved to roughhouse, and as Molly grew she could occasionally get the advantage. One afternoon in our back yard Molly had the upper hand and suddenly Zach froze and looked intently at something in the distance. Molly stopped mouthing the back of his neck in order to see what was so interesting. Immediately Zach twisted out from under her and pounced. There was nothing there at all. Zach had simply made it up (lied, in effect) in order to regain the advantage.
Another instance was when I was working a retrieving exercise with Vicki, our American Staffordshire Terrier. I threw the dumbbell into the woodpile and as she started to climb the pile, the dumbbell dropped down between the pieces of firewood. I thought, “oh no, I’ve asked her to do something she won’t be able to do.” Vicki didn’t hesitate though, she started heaving firewood out of the way until she got to the dumbbell and then proudly finished a beautiful retrieve.
And how many times have clients told me that their dogs know their toys by name? Yes indeed, dogs do reason. I’d love to hear from you with your own examples.
