Here is an example of what I consider to be far clearer evidence of the native intelligence of one specific dog. As a puppy, a dog of mine was frightened by a very loud sound, the firing of a shotgun just a couple feet away from her. As a result, Deimos always hated loud sounds throughout her life.
Even though she was a hunting dog (a Redbone Coonhound) she grew up being very spoiled and somewhat of a sissy, always expecting to be covered up to sleep in her dogbed. Early in her life, I had noticed that when she saw the flash of lightning, she would invariably run to her dogbed and start to shiver. I eventually realized that she wanted not only to be covered, but to have her head covered as well. At the time, I did not understand the implications of that, but there was every appearance that she was frightened of the flash of lightning.
It was only after watching this happen many times that I finally realized that she had somehow figured out the relationship between lightning and thunder! When she would see the bright flash, she had figured out that a few seconds later, there would be a loud boom! So it was not the bright flash at all that she was afraid of, but the thunder that she knew would soon follow.
That is amazing ANALYTICAL THINKING! How could a dog discover such a relationship?
It actually had some humorous side effects! Whenever a flash camera was used to take a photo of anyone, she would immediately run to her bed and start shivering! I would wonder if she was confused as to why there was no sound of thunder then!
This example shows a combination of good observation and good logic in an analysis and then in arriving at a reliable conclusion. That is pretty close to what is considered the Scientific Method of investigation! That is quite different from an animal simply learning to copy some sound or behavior, or to reinforce a specific behavior based on treats or praise training.
During those times, I have witnessed a number of incidents that certainly seem to indicate some thinking capability in at least some of them. Several of these incidents are presented below.
Quite a few of the dogs I have had have been hunting breeds. Nearly half have been varieties of Coonhounds. Since I would never want to even injure any animal, much less kill it, I needed to find a way to let them practice some skills while still teaching them to never hurt anything. So I trained them to ONLY kill tennis balls!
After a while, many of their lives revolved around tracking, catching, retrieving and trying to chew up tennis balls! They REALLY looked forward to the times I would play with them. Usually, I would sit on the living room floor and ask for a ball. They would disappear in all different directions and in short order I'd have half a dozen tennis balls!
If it was near any edge of the couch there was no problem and either dog could reach under for it. But when it rolled to near the middle, their heads were too big to fit far enough in to be able to grab it. They would look under at it. The two dogs DEFINITELY had different ideas. After a few seconds of looking, the male would just jam his head under, lifting up the heavy couch as he pushed. He did this a couple times even when I happened to be sitting on the couch. That had to be REALLY painful!
The other dog, the female, clearly had more organized thoughts. Her usual method resembled the following methodical approach: She would go up to all four sides of the couch and look at the ball. Then she would again look from all four sides. She would stay for several seconds in each place. After all that, she invariably would pick the side that was nearest. I was always impressed with the thoroughness of her approach. It suggested to me a series of organized thoughts, taking observations and then analyzing them to determine the best side to work from. (Even when the ball was near one end of the couch, she would still look from the other end, five feet away! She had found a system that worked and she never varied from it.)
Once she selected the best side, her head was still too big to fit under the couch to reach it. At different times, she tried various ways. One worked well, of just kicking at it with her paws, but the ball would come out the other side of the couch and the other dog would get the credit for bringing it to me. She eventually came up with a way that worked relatively well. She would reach both of her forepaws under the couch (her head was up alongside the couch so she couldn't actually see what was happening). If the ball was only a little beyond what her mouth could have reached, she would gently put a paw (usually the right paw) on top of the ball and carefully pull it back toward her. Even if it slipped off (and it usually did) the ball rolled generally toward her side of the couch enough for her to grab it with her mouth.
When the ball was even farther away, she could sometimes somehow extend her claws that would catch in the fuzz of the tennis ball. Sometimes, she used both paws alternately to very slowly pull the ball toward herself. Quite impressive!
I was SO impressed by her combination of logical analysis and then motor skills that, sometimes when the dogs were not around, I would use a ruler to place the ball just 1/2 inch nearer the front back or end of the couch, to see if she would try from the best direction (she ALWAYS did!) and how successfully she would be at actually getting it. She was remarkably effective! I do not see how that sequence would be possible without intelligence, logic and creative thought.
Several years later, these two dogs had a litter of nine puppies, three of which were kept as parts of the family. Two of those three were not particularly notable except as being generally good dogs. The third was the most remarkable animal I have ever had the honor of being near. She exhibited a number of behaviors, each of which I cannot explain except by attributing to her a significant analytical ability. I have collected some of the anecdotes about her in a separate page, at Animal Insights.
( http://mb-soft.com/public/index.html )
C Johnson, Physicist, Physics Degree from Univ of Chicago