hoegaandit
New member
[MENTION=2874]anatess[/MENTION] - this is a really interesting answer. I have read some of Dr Coren's books and thought they were quite good; not sure if I've read The Intelligence of Dogs, but as you note, this is measuring "working" or obedience intelligence, and obviously a breed which like a sheepdog is bred for obedience is going to score much higher on this sort of measurement than a bulldog which basically was initially bred to fight (hold onto a bull's nose without letting go, regardless of the difficulty).
In my opinion adaptive intelligence as you describe is the best test of intelligence. About fifty of Moscow's tens of thousands of dogs have actually learned to use the metro train system to travel from one place to the other - how amazing is that!
On an obviously much more basic level our boy has shown some signs of adaptive intelligence as when he has learned over the years to react in a better way towards other dogs, despite never having had siblings and being taken early from his mother. We have never tested him on adaptive intelligence though and I wonder if tests of this nature have been carried out on different breeds.
In my opinion adaptive intelligence as you describe is the best test of intelligence. About fifty of Moscow's tens of thousands of dogs have actually learned to use the metro train system to travel from one place to the other - how amazing is that!
On an obviously much more basic level our boy has shown some signs of adaptive intelligence as when he has learned over the years to react in a better way towards other dogs, despite never having had siblings and being taken early from his mother. We have never tested him on adaptive intelligence though and I wonder if tests of this nature have been carried out on different breeds.