How smart is your dog?

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They are truly incredible dogs.Just about 3 miles from me is a State Park. The have Scottish Trials there each year. To watch these dogs herd sheep and move them around obstacles and into pens, without any verbal commands, is simply amazing.
 
I have heard border collies are smart. I’ve also heard Australian Shepherds are just a wee bit smarter. They are a little bit larger, so it makes sense they would have a bigger brain. I guess it’s also how they are trained too.

I know my dog Blizzard is smart, but he is also pretty stubborn... Our 6 month old puppy Rainy, who is also an Australian Shepherd like Blizzard, is quite a big smarter than Blizzard....and I seriously think that has something to do with her gender.
 
Of all the farm and ranch dogs that we have owned, one stands out in my memory.

Over the decades I have owned one or two Guernsey milk cows, kept for our own use for milk. Since we live on our cattle ranch, raising beef cattle, the milk cows are pastured in the horse pasture with our draft and stock horses.

I have owned a number of dogs that have been trained to bring the milk cows or draft horses to the barn from the pasture every morning and evening at milking time for the cows, or the horses when we need them. The dogs enjoy running to the pasture and bringing the livestock.

However, Skeeter, the dog I am writing about is the only dog that I have ever owned that on command, "go get the cows", would go get the milk cows and leave the horses in the pasture. Also, Skeeter, is the only dog we owned that would go to bring the horses to the corral, on command, "go get the horses", and leave the cows in the pasture when I sent the dog to the pasture.

All of our other trained dogs, over the years, would always bring both the horses and the cows together, every time, no matter the command for either the horses or cows.
 
I have come to the conclusion...that the dumbest dog...is still smarter than the smartest democrat politician
 
Over the last 25 years I’ve been blessed to have as best friends a Border Collie named Harry, and two Red Heelers, Tuffy and Popeye. All three were sure they were smarter than me. They were probably right.
 
Great article and story BPJ. Our dog Sadie picks up on things that scare me sometimes with what she knows, remembers or figures out. Plus she knows the crinkle sound of every type of bag or container and which are worth running over to (like a bag of treats).
 
Taterman said:
Great article and story BPJ. Our dog Sadie picks up on things that scare me sometimes with what she knows, remembers or figures out. Plus she knows the crinkle sound of every type of bag or container and which are worth running over to (like a bag of treats).
Click to expand...

Or like taking the cellophane off of a piece of cheese? :mrgreen:
 
Some of you old timers here may remember my useless ol' cow dog Sugar. She was half border collie and half Australian shepard. Smartest animal I've ever had the pleasure to share life with - waaaaay smarter than me. It was a pure joy to watch her work, although I think she enjoyed it more than me, to her it was play, not work.

I sure do miss that useless ol' cow dog.
 
Hi...
Don't know how to quantify how smart a dog is but ..
I have had several Labrador Retrievers that were pretty smart.
Two of them figured out how to open closed doors by putting their paw on the knob and turning it while leaning against the door.
I am pretty sure there isn't a dog alive that hasn't figured out what some words are when they are spelled... I know mine can understand several different words when we spell them out.
 
And then there is the other kind.

Over the decades I have had over a dozen dogs on our ranches. Perhaps the dumbest dog we ever had caused grief to my daughter, who was about 10 years old at that time, 50 years ago.

I was a County Undersheriff at the time, happened to be in the Crested Butte area checking on some Hippy camps in the area. One Hippy had a female Golden Retriever that had just had a litter of tiny pups. She asked me if I would take one since she was giving them away. I knew that the pups were pretty sure to die since Hippies were notorious for not carrying for their animals and the female dog looked like she was about starving. In fact the female had almost no milk in her udder. So I took a pup about the size of my hand.

At home my daughter fell in love with the little pup. She got an eye dropper to feed and take care of the little pup, feeding it milk from one of our milk cows almost every hour for the first few days or weeks and finally puppy feed, etc., until the pup grew up.

When the pup was just a few months old, it was the only one of the dogs on our ranch that learned to chase cars. Our ranch is on a gravel county road about 35 miles from town and nearly 15 miles off the paved state road. There is very little traffic past our ranch. But the pup learned to run to the road and chase any car or truck that was going by.

Within a few weeks the pup got a broken leg by chasing a car and my daughter was heart broken. She and I took the pup to the local Vet so my daughter watched the vet set and cast the leg. The Vet and I consoled my daughter, who was crying, telling her that the injury would teach the dog a lesson about chasing cars. My daughter was consoled with that.

Finally the dog's leg healed. My daughter and I took the dog back to the vet who removed the cast, declaring the leg properly healed. We took the dog home, my daughter holding the dog in her lap all the way home.

Within about a week, a neighbor drove into the ranch yard, met me in our shop, and informed me that my daughter's beautiful Golden Retriever had ran out to the road as he was driving by, had tried to bite his truck's front wheel, was injured, and he was sorry that he could not help it but we should know the dog was still in the road. By the time I got to the dog, its short life was over. Even the broken leg never taught it not to chase cars.
 
The smartest dog I have had was an Australian Shepard mix. I don't own stock so I did not use him to work but he was very intelligent. He just didn't necessarily want to do what you wanted unless it involved food. He was the most food obsessed animal I have ever seen. Sadly we had him put down Monday but 16 years is a pretty good run for a dog.
 
Mike J said:
The smartest dog I have had was an Australian Shepard mix. I don't own stock so I did not use him to work but he was very intelligent. He just didn't necessarily want to do what you wanted unless it involved food. He was the most food obsessed animal I have ever seen. Sadly we had him put down Monday but 16 years is a pretty good run for a dog.
Click to expand...

You have no idea what a food obsessed dog is until you have a Labrador Retriever...
My yellow Lab will try to eat most anything...including carrots, tomatoes, celery, peaches, etc.
My black Lab(litter mates) is a very finicky eater...he has to lick everything before he takes it, then drops it on the floor before he decides if it is suitable. Most times when he drops something, the yellow Lab swoops in and steals it.
 
I believe my dog is smarter than Diane Fartstein and her cronies questioning the morals, ethics and history of Judge Kavanaugh. I know that's not saying much. But I love her. My dog I mean. Don.
 
375supermag said:
Mike J said:
The smartest dog I have had was an Australian Shepard mix. I don't own stock so I did not use him to work but he was very intelligent. He just didn't necessarily want to do what you wanted unless it involved food. He was the most food obsessed animal I have ever seen. Sadly we had him put down Monday but 16 years is a pretty good run for a dog.
Click to expand...

You have no idea what a food obsessed dog is until you have a Labrador Retriever...
My yellow Lab will try to eat most anything...including carrots, tomatoes, celery, peaches, etc.
My black Lab(litter mates) is a very finicky eater...he has to lick everything before he takes it, then drops it on the floor before he decides if it is suitable. Most times when he drops something, the yellow Lab swoops in and steals it.
Click to expand...


Or a Doberman. Feed a Dobie and you have a friend for life. Most of the ones we had were also pretty darned smart, too. :lol:
 
You have no idea what a food obsessed dog is until you have a Labrador Retriever...
My yellow Lab will try to eat most anything...including carrots, tomatoes, celery, peaches, etc.
My black Lab(litter mates) is a very finicky eater...he has to lick everything before he takes it, then drops it on the floor before he decides if it is suitable. Most times when he drops something, the yellow Lab swoops in and steals it.[/quote]

Sounds like you know my yellow lab. He also will eat, red peppers, green beans, most fruits, spaghetti, heck, he eats more stuff than I will.
 
I had a Lab/Golden Retriever mix years ago. I thought the world of that dog. He was really dumb & clumsy when he was young but was okay once he matured. I liked his disposition. He was easy to train because he wanted you to be happy. The Australian Shepard mix always had his own agenda.
 
We have border collies, and an Australian shepherd pup, yes the border collies are a tad bit smarter, border collies are very smart, I think their born able to understand humans, they're very easy to train , we could be anywhere on our property, 22 1/2 acres, say go home , and they'll be waiting in the garage for us to return, didn't even train them for this ,they just know, we'll only have herding dogs , because of their intelligence, it really is amazing
 
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