Dogs as intelligent as 14-month
old children

A recent report suggest that dogs are as intelligent as 14-month old children. It found that dogs were capable of advanced reasoning similar to that of most toddlers.

The Austrian research suggests we have long under-estimated man's best friend and, in sophisticated tests, dogs were able to ape the reasoning abilities of toddlers who were set the task of working out how best to turn on a light in a darkened room - even though they were shown how to do it incorrectly - toddlers correctly chose their hands even though their mothers had used their heads (wrongly). Dogs, who will typically use their mouths to carry out the tasks that we do with our hands, were able to mimic this deductive reasoning when shown incorrectly how to do it like the children (a dog was specially trained to carry out the task incorrectly using its paws).

Up to 80% of the dogs were able to use the power of deduction to assume that their mouth was the correct part of the body to use to carry out the procedure - when shown incorrectly. This proved that their powers stretched beyond mere copying and to how to carry out tasks to the best of their abilities.

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© Copyright Pet Health Insurance, June 2007

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