Do dogs think?

[PrincessHoneysuckle]

Just sat in the garden watching my boy spying on the neighbours and wondered if they have an internal voice like we do e.g "fuck off I dont want to go out for a wee" etc
Dh thinks I've had too much sun

absolutely.. mine is really manipulative and u see him purposefully plannning what he can do to get my attention (something usually really naughty)

We have a dog and a babe in arms in our house. When someone is walking through the lounge carrying the baby, the dog gets up and moves out of the way. He doesn’t move otherwise and we step over him. No one has ever taught him this.

😂 brilliant

They dream! You can sometimes tell what mine is doing in his dream by the noises he makes and his movements.

Yes, mine do- usually sitting in their beds. You can see their eyes moving from target (like empty food plates left by DC) to the obstacle (me). They will watch me carefully and as soon as I am busy with MN, reading or leave the room, they are on target!
Sometimes I get one casually notching me for fuss while the other makes a move on the target!

... they are definitely more clever than we like to think!

One of my favourite things in the world is to see my partner's Lab lying on her bed... then raise her head for a minute, tuck her ears back, then get up, go into the other room, fetch a toy and bring it back to her bed.

I LOVE that she seems to be thinking: "I need a... what is it...? Oh yes! Where did I leave that? Here it is."

My dog carefully assesses what I'm in changing into to decide whether it is dog walk appropriate or not...

Alas she doesn't understand the word "walk"!

They definitely think but I think mine is pretty stupid , I’ve told him repeatedly that if he feels sick in the night to stick his head down one of the toilets but the other night he simply vomited all over my duvet .

Ooh, good question.

I wonder what this dogs dreaming about?

Mine dreams about chasing squirrels!

She also refuses to go for a walk in the morning in case she misses out on the opportunity to sunbathe on our bed... never quite sure how she knows what time it is tbh!

My dog smiles by crinkling up her eyes when I ask her to smile. She's learned this by copying me when I smile at her.

However, sometimes I'll wink at her when she watching me closely and she'll get this look on her face as if she trying to do it to and you can almost see her thinking 'nah, too hard

When we used to work on her recall with treats, she also worked out that if she stopped and sat down without being asked, I'd walk on and call her, and when she came to me she'd get a treat.

I love the way when she's clearly been dreaming, all twitchy and grunty, she'll sometimes wake suddenly and look around as if she's thinking 'what the hell just happened, how did I end up here?'

I love it when I’m training my boy and you can practically see the expression of concentration on his face when he’s trying to work something out.

God yes. Mine's very manipulative. She also displays ENORMOUS guilt, if she does something naughty when I'm out. I can tell she's done something before I see it, from her behaviour. That does require quite advanced thinking, including time displacement.

Yes, I think they do think about things and work them out.

They have to work out what's required and do it when learning some new bit of training, so I suppose it makes sense that they will be able to think of things for themselves to some extent.

Mine also gets really excited in the morning when I'm getting dressed, because she knows that means a walk soon. But if she notices I'm putting my running stuff on, she goes and hides under the bed. She doesn't like 'those kind of walks'.

Mine can tell the difference between work clothes and non-work clothes 😂 also she can hear one of the cats retching regardless of where they are and whizzes off to clear up before we get there.

Took her 4 years to realise she could actually get both ways through the internal cat flap though so we wouldn't know that she'd been naughty and stolen the cat food out the porch!

She also displays ENORMOUS guilt, if she does something naughty when I'm out

Dogs don't know what guilt is, she knows she will get a telling off and those guilty signs are her trying to appease you. She's not sorry for what she's done because she forgot she did it, she's trying to make you not be angry

cats as well.

mine knows that if he wants dreamies, he can let me know by tapping my foot. i taught him to give me a paw in return for dreamies when he was little, and he has used logical thought to arrive at ‘paw=dreamies, let’s try that the other way round’.

the difficult bit is persuading him that it only works once a day!

he is a Clever Boy. he also gets the twitchy-paw dreams.

Mine does. We’ve got a dog walking park here and I like to practice his “come back and get your lead on” when there are distractions like in the park. Outside of the park he just returns when I say “lead” and puts his head through. But in the park you see him turning to come and then thinking “actually, we’re in the park, you’re just going to take it off again so no, I don’t think I will come this time, thanks”

Best example I can share.

Friend trained their large dog to ding a bell when he wanted to go out to use the back garden for toilet. Worked brilliantly. Then he kept ringing in the night...

Cat wanted letting in 😂

My last dog noticed that my elderly mum didn't react to noises such as the phone ringing like everyone else did. When Mum was dog sitting the dog would move next to whatever was making the noise and bark to get her attention and go fetch her if she still didn't realise. Dog didn't do this for anyone else.

she can hear one of the cats retching regardless of where they are and whizzes off to clear up before we get there

That is hilarious and disgusting in equal measure... gave me a good chuckle, thank you!

Mine both know running kit vs normal clothes. Running kit results in hallway hysteria.

The younger one knows when I'm packing up to take her gundog training. Gets excited and it goes up a notch once the flask of tea goes into the blue bag so she knows I really mean it. When we arrive and I open the boot she is sometimes literally shaking with excitement.

The older one recognises suitcases and goes into a sulk. He will literally sniff them, stalk off a few feet and sit down with his back to you.

And there was a notable time when I only realised some food had been stolen due to the slinking, smarmy behaviour of the culprit. I hadn't looked cross, I hadn't even spotted that a crime had been committed, I just walked in, took one look at her and thought, 'She's done something, the little sod!' as she grovelled appeasingly in my general direction. They're not supposed to be able to feel guilt but they 100% know when they've done something they shouldn't.

Yes! My dog steals my shoes, but only as I've started to put them on. He knows damn well what he's doing!