Canine eggheads enjoy playing with toys and retrieving objects.
“Gifted” dogs, who have a rare talent for learning lots of words for objects easily, also turn out to be more playful than other dogs, a new study finds.
Prior research in humans has shown a link between playfulness and problem-solving abilities, so animal behavior researchers from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, wondered if the same was true for rollicking pups.
What is a gifted dog? In the new study, it was Border collies who had proven in prior research that they were able to learn as many as 12 new words per week and then retain them for months.
To take a closer look at the possible association between giftedness and playfulness in dogs, Claudia Fugazza, a researcher in the university’s department of ethology (the study of animal behavior), and her colleagues asked the owners of 165 Border collies to fill out dog personality questionnaires. Twenty-one of the dogs were gifted and the other 114 were just randomly selected with no testing for word learning ability.
The surveys assessed the personality of the animals in five categories:
- Fearfulness, including fear of people, nonsocial fear, fear of dogs, fear of handling.
- Aggression toward people, including general aggression and aggression in certain situations.
- Activity/Excitability, including excitability, playfulness, active engagement and companionability.
- Responsiveness, such as trainability and controllability.
- Aggression toward animals, including aggression toward dogs, prey drive and dominance over other dogs.
For the evaluation of playfulness the owners were asked to rate their dogs in three areas:
- Dog gets bored in play quickly.
- Dog enjoys playing with toys.
- Dog retrieves objects, such as balls, toys and sticks.
The researchers focused solely on Border collies because earlier experiments found that the breed is more likely to be good at learning new words compared to others.
After collecting the survey responses, the researchers then compared the responses from owners of gifted dogs to those from the owners of dogs who had not been identified as gifted.
Playfulness was the only personality trait that was consistently different between the two groups.
It’s not clear from the study whether it’s the playfulness that helps the dogs learn more words, or whether the extra playful ones ended up with more opportunities to learn, said Fugazza, the study’s lead author, said in an email. That’s because gifted dogs tend to learn words for objects when their owners are playing with them.
Are playful dogs smarter?
Not exactly.
“Intelligence is the result of diverse cognitive traits that allow individuals to flexibly solve different types of problems,” Fugazza explained. “Giftedness refers to an extremely good capacity in the case of a specific skill.”
So, maybe gifted dogs are like people who score high on the verbal part of the SATs.
If your pup doesn’t learn words easily, it doesn’t mean it’s a dumb dog. Adam Boyko, an expert in canine genomics, reassures owners that canine intelligence is more than that.
“Both dogs and wolves are playful when they are puppies, but dogs really evolved to living in the human environment and to responding to social cues,” said Boyko, a specialist in the genetics of behavior and an associate professor at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. “It’s not surprising that the more playful ones exhibit better learning in the domain of learning human words. And it’s not surprising that Border collies, who are bred to respond to human cues, show the propensity to learn words more than other breeds.”
Other breeds of dogs might show intelligence in other ways, Boyko said. For example, wolves are very intelligent although they don’t typically pick up on human cues.
“But they can figure out how to escape,” said Boyko. “Where dogs would look for a person to help, wolves would see how humans did a latch and lock and then the wolves would do it themselves to get out.”
Boyko would like to take the study a step further and look at the genetics of the gifted dogs.
“This is a tantalizing correlation that might be meaningful if you are trying to build better service dogs,” he said.
One thing that can’t be determined from the study is whether the playfulness trait spurred owners to interact more with their dogs and thus teach them more words, said Dr. Nicholas Dodman, a professor emeritus at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, CEO and president of the Center for Canine Behavior Studies and the author of “Pets on the Couch: Neurotic Dogs, Compulsive Cats, Anxious Birds and the New Science of Animal Psychiatry.”
Dodman said the study is interesting but needs to be replicated in a larger number of dogs.
“I would also like to see it done in a different breed,” he said.
The new findings might help people who want to buy or adopt a puppy. It suggests that playfulness might be a good attribute to consider.
“The playful ones might be more likely to interact with a person, assimilate words more easily and be more intelligent,” said Dodman.
The Poor Dog Was Hit By A Car And Was Thrown Into An Abandoned House. Is Everything Waiting For Her Is DEATH?
Noah the dog was stuck in a nightmare and couldn’t wake up. The hell she went through is hard to repeat or write about.
Despite her cute appearance, she was nothing more than a dirty stray dog. That upset some sick people so much that they decided to cause her serious harm.
Where she continued to live for days, under the sun and rain and tried to survive in this terrible situation.
They laughed at her pain all the time.
Every weak breath made all of us who saw her think that she would leave this world at any moment.
Her body was so thin that every bone could be counted. From the day we picked up Noah, a long road of healing began. Her entire past will be left behind
We want to convey meaningful rescue stories through each post to spread the message: “Protect animals” because they, like humans, want to live and be loved.
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So Horrible ! Puppy Was Strangled And Swallowed To Death By A Giant Snake..
That day we went to visit the stray dogs, but when vwfa arrived, the whole scene made us completely scared!
A big snake is tightening around her neck, oh my god!
Despite our fear, we know that if we don’t act now the puppies will die.. No protective gear, no tools, I used my hands to pull that huge snake out of the puppy.. but the truth is not that simple..
The dogs are hungry and quite weak, maybe because they are too hungry, maybe they can’t breathe.. I saw tears falling from their eyes.. so pitiful! After a period of trying with the help of our teammates, we were able to rescue the small dogs, God bless them!
Luckily I brought milk with me, the hungry little dogs drank it very well, that’s great!
There was a small dog that after drinking milk lay down to sleep right at my feet It was really lucky, I injured my hand but I think we did the right thing.
Thank you everyone for following and supporting us. Every comment or share contributes to promoting the protection as well as rescuing and nurturing our beloved animals. I hope every creature above the world is happy!
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The Heart-Stopping Account Of A Heroic Rescue Dog’s Confrontation With A Sea Of Venomous Snakes
In a profoundly moving act of kindness and loyalty, it was Max, the faithful dog, who stood before John and the dogs who advanced, protecting his owner from danger.
The story takes a turn with an ending that will certainly touch your heart and bring tears of joy to your eyes.
As John walked through the forest, completely aware that two venomous snakes were ready to attack, his loyal dog sensed the imminent danger and sprang into action.
Jon was overwhelmed with gratitude for Max’s remarkable bravery and unwavering loyalty.
Ultimately, the story of the fearless dog who courageously put himself in harm’s way to protect his owner from venomous snakes is a poignant reminder of the special bond between humans and their furry friends.
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