On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:59:36 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

However, anybody with a dog will realize their pet is capable of some
sort of reasoning and intelligence.

I wouldn't say some sort - I would say that dogs are fully capable of
reasoning and even the average dog has innate intelligence.

When these discussions come up, I always point to my buddy Duke Doggee
Dog who was a blind Border Collie. He had a vocabulary of 350 plus
words, he understood complex sentences and even offer an opinion from
time-to-time. :)

Proof of the pudding that dogs can reason and even rationalize was
Duke and one other dog I had in the service - a Belgian Shepard named
Major. Duke was blind, but I didn't know it until he was five - I
happened to notice calcium deposits in his eyes and took him to the
top veterinary opthamologist at Tufts Vet School who tested him and
calmly asked me if I knew he was blind. :)

Major could even read body language, had a similar vocabulary to Duke
and had an uncanny ability to work off leash to a complex set of hand
commands.

Even average dogs have 200+ word vocabularies - it's just a difference
in levels of intelligence.

Just like in humans.