Wizard of Woodstock wrote:
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.

My Spitz likes those ropes that are tied in a bone shape. She greets you
with it. Now, if I come home, and go in the house, she brings me her
rope. If she can't find it, she has a fit! She'll go all over the house,
never forgetting the task at hand, even if the kids mess with her,
she'll look under beds, etc. until she finds it. When she tears the rope
up too bad, we throw it away, and you better be getting another one. She
becomes almost neurotic if she doesn't have it.