valentine

Poor little doggy. That's probably why he's "retarded" . . . frontal lobe damage from the tennis ball strike.

Lainey

It's the simple things, sometimes.

silvershadow

We have two dogs - a border collie, and a Belgian shepherd cross. The Belgian is dumb as a stump, but he's cute. The border collie is quite old now (16). There have been so many times when she has shocked me with her intelligence. The latest is that she went deaf about a year ago, and even at her advanced age, she learned to respond to hand signals.

There's a joke I read many years ago - How many dogs does it take to change a lightbulb? Then it goes through all the different breeds. The line for the border collie is something like - not only will I change your light bulb, I'll rewire your house for you.

National Geographic did a feature article on smart animals about a year ago, and one of the animals they featured was a border collie that could recognize and respond to over 300 words. According to the behavioral experts, they said this level of intelligence was comparable to a human baby.

The article also said that animals are getting smarter - very interesting.

Here's the article

smart animals

Lainey

My sister has a plott hound mix. The dog is, well, not as bright as BB, or John's border collie.

They adopted the dog from a shelter. His head is kind of caved in in one spot. Maybe also the result of a game of catch the tennis ball gone wild? My nephew thought they should adopt the dog as he thought no one else would.

Though the dog doesn't seem very bright, my sister has taught him a few tricks which totally entertained my granddaughter. Jerry, there is hope for Gabe.

MsPerky

I guess BB knew a word you didn't think she knew! Very . We had a friend who had a border collie. That dog was never still! Always herding something.

MsPerky

I know I've mentioned this before, but anyone who loves dogs needs to buy Gene Weingarten's (Wash Post humorist) latest book called Old Dogs. It's wonderful. Amazon has it for a pretty good price.

gomarlins3

I miss my Shelby Dog.

HondaGal

My dog watches TV and knows the word TV.

She knows Grandma, the two P words, breakfast, supper, walk, kiss, the staples easy button, it's endless. I asked her for my missing ear muffs, she had them and destroyed them, but she didn't bring them to me because she know she was in doggy doo doo.

Her favourite commercials are Wendy's flame burger, and a Dairy Queen commercial and the food network with their bouncing ball commerical.

valentine

BB knows the melody to allllllll the dog food commercials and the PetSmart commercial and will come flying from other rooms in the house to stand in anticipation in front of the tv when those commercial jingles begin. I die laughing. She knows who Daddy is (even if he isn't happy about it), knows treat and even knows the spelling. Of course she knows "outside", she knows my daughter's name, and she knows me as Mommy. She knows when it is 9 PM at night and begins to get fidgety and starts pawing "daddy's" leg at 9 because that's her bedtime, so she wants to go outside to do her evening's business so she can go to bed. BB has never destroyed anything that belongs to us, but I always know if she's had an accident (which is VERY rare) because she hides and refuses to come out.

Morris

Followup on my shaggy dog story. It was made up, but the tennis ball is the only thing she will retrieve. Xylie has ball drive and will catch the ball in running, over-the-head throws, or 100 foot high throws. She has also learned, as my first g.s. did, to smell my clothes as I get dressed. She knows work clothes (Dad's off to the office) from hang around the house clothes(Dad's staying home, oh boy).
Apart from your dogs, she has no interest in TV, unless maybe there's a wolf howling. Oh, I almost forgot, she will sing on command. (She howls, and will often match notes with me.)