Cool Observation

Doberluv

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#1
Today I was sitting on my deck and Lyric, my Doberman brought a hunk of bark to gnaw on. I didn't want him to mess up my deck and was too lazy to get up and really show him that I wanted him to take it onto the lawn instead, so I gave a half attemp (not thinking it would really work) at telling him to take it off the deck. I said, "Lyric, take the toy off the deck." (duh.....like he's really going to understand a whole English sentence) He's never been taught to do this. He does know what "toy" means and I thought he might see the bark as a toy. He also knows what "off" means in connection with him getting off of the couch or counter (when he was a pup) etc. But he's never been really taught how to apply that to other things. I was quite suprised when I said again, "Lyric....toy off. Toy off deck," (he doesn't know what deck is either I don't think) he picked up the bark and went off the deck onto the grass. A minute later, he again came on the deck with the bark and set it down. And again, I said the same thing, "Toy off deck." He grabbed it up and again went and lay down on the grass with it, at which time I told him how wonderful he was. LOL. Isn't that something how he took some components of things he understood and made a new connection and applied them to something entirely different on his own? That's a smart dog I think. LOL.
 
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#3
ROFLMAO! Amazing how smart they get when we're not expecting them to be able to do something, isn't it . . . They understand a lot more than we've been conditioned to expect, I think.
 

sparks19

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#4
Thats because all this "research" has been done on how a dogs brain works and they are not giving them as much credit as they deserve. I think dogs have way more brain power than they think they do. Teddy does that with a lot of things. They are smarter than we think lol
 
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#5
I think dogs a so smart. I know mine knows a huge amount of what I say. Good for Lyric for showing you how smart he is.
 
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#7
I really think my dogs understand at least 2/3's of human language! They observe our body language, our tone, and listen to the words and put 2 + 2 together!!
 

Barb04

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#8
Way to go Lyric. I bet he's holding back not wanting to show you everything he knows.
 

poeluvr

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#9
he probably just understood off, so he figured it out
or maybe hes just extremely smart
 

Doberluv

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#10
he probably just understood off, so he figured it out
Yes, he understood off in the way of getting his body off the couch or when he use to jump up on the counter to steal something when he was a baby.....like HE is suppose to get his body off. But I thought this was so entirely different....my asking him to remove another object, not him. So that kind of tickled me when I said "toy off" and apparently he switched from thinking of off in terms of his body getting off something to...his picking up and removing the toy off of the deck. I could be wrong. Maybe it was just a coincidence. I suppose we'd need to repeat that experiment several times. Or maybe they really can put 2 and 2 together much better than we thought. Hmmm. Velllly interestsink!
 

poeluvr

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#11
yea but (not to burst urbubble:))
you said that when you told him to take it off, lyric went onto the grass with the bark, removing his body. he probably thought u wanted him off
 

bridey_01

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#12
I'm always surprised at how fast dogs learn and how they apply their knowledge to situations. I see this all the time in class, dogs can generalize way better than we give them credit for. I've seen this countless times with my kelpie. She has been taught to round up the cat and "hold" him till I can get him inside. The command for this is a kind of tsst tsst, followed by a "go get the cat!".
Well, last year one of my chi's escaped and was heading down the road at a hundred miles an hour. I said "tsst tsst" and she tensed and looked around for the cat, but i followed it by a "go get buddy!" in hopeful desperation!
Well, she paused then shot off after him and held him against a wall till I came and got him.
 

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