Re: Do dogs……? / Can dogs………?

[Justine&Rafe]

Righto, if Rafe has patience for me we’re learning it all!!

Re: Early input and dogs’ intelligence –

Surely the way intelligence expresses itself is closely linked to the desire to express new behaviours.  In this way it would explain why a rescue dog from a hard background would be less willing/keen to express a behaviour that it was not certain of the human response to.

I know dogs whose handlers are very, well, hands on, and not in a good way.  They sit beautifully, are very quiet, and REALLY hard to teach new tricks to.  Because they have had any independent actions beaten out of them, so have learned to do nothing, or to be stoopid, as we see it, to avoid a beating.  Perhaps this behaviour becomes ingrained in some dogs, even when in a positive environment.

I’d have thought that in the majority of cases this was a more overriding factor than the input affecting the dog’s intelligence, although no doubt that would be an influencing factor in the intelligence behaviour.