Puppy survival thread! All welcome!

[VanGoSunflowers]

Running on from our last one…

I won’t tag people because I will forget someone and then feel awful 😂

@ThatNattyPlayer oh my, he’s like a little teddy bear! Absolutely gorgeous! 😍

@Houndymumma oh that's much younger than I was thinking! I have to say I have no idea what I would do if one of my dog's just did a Flat Basset on a walk...possibly just leave them there and hope their fear of abandonment meant they moved eventually😁

@ThatNattyPlayer as others have said, he's lovely!

I'm starting to think a Pyrie would be very compatible with a Basset @Houndymumma @LandSharksAnonymous They seem to be of similar mindset in many ways 😆

Going back to what we were saying a day or two ago, have you seen this @Houndymumma ? My breed is ranked 64 for intelligence and yours is 71 😂 It made me slightly furious the other day when it popped up on a thread, and I was quite rude scathing about it. Now I can see the funny side, kind of...😏 It's one of those if you know you know sort of things 😁

@Aubrielle where is this!? I'd love to know where my merry band of nitwits fall...

Sorry, @LandSharksAnonymous link failed https://www.yummypets.com/mag/2014/06/24/39237/stanley-coren-dogs-intelligence-ranking
(Or perhaps my brain failed, not sure which)

Yours is way up there as a clever one!

There's so many permutations @LandSharksAnonymous .
With Magnus (aka The Dope on a Rope) I wouldn't have argued with 64 ranking tbh, two of ours I'd have mid table, but then we've had three pretty clever ones and two Mensa dogs, including current girl. No way is she a 64! She may have a "fuck that" attitude to commands, but she's not stupid 😁

It's interesting if you want a trainable and obedient dog breed though.

Clever you say? 😁I present you Exhibit A: Twatdog. Whoever made this list definitely hasn’t met him!

That being said, I can completely see how Afghans are last…I’ve met a few and whilst they are lovely they are so thick (and stubborn - which may be most of the problem tbh).

As you say, I do think they confuse biddable with intelligent on a lot of these lists! Goldens, are trainable and obedient…yes. Smart? No.

Is that sexiphant or a giant mouse? @LandSharksAnonymous
Twatdog does look ecstatically happy, it has to be said.

I've never properly met an Afghan but I have known a couple of Chows and they were sort of aloof to the point of being emotionally absent. They may just be very deep thinkers though, who knows?

But I was scathing of this list on the Doberman thread the other night, not helped by having a pre-migraine grump on 😳 I will say that Brie is bright for a breed in 64th place though 😏

What a load of bollocks! And not just because cocker spaniels are 18th. 😂
Mine are intelligent enough to know exactly what I'm saying, and stubborn/independent enough to decide if they are going to do it or not.

I wonder how many dogs of each breed he worked with to conduct this research.

@Aubrielle I remember seeing that list once and questioned his logic of how quick a dog picks up a command being the equivalent to intelligence!
From memory, Labs are fairly high on that list but I’ve often thought if Pablo was more intelligent, he wouldn’t wait for me to give him a release command to eat his food. He’d think ‘stuff you I’m hungry’ and leap straight in 😂

It’s got to be a flawed study!

@VanGoSunflowers
I'm sure we've looked at it before and laughed about it. It doesn't say how many dogs of each breed were tested, did they come from pet homes or were they working dogs? And exactly what were the commands? Was there food reward? Toys? Presumably all that info is in his book. This article states that 51% of a dogs intelligence is genetic but 49% environmental, which sounds like bullshit anyway, given that a breeder can pick out the cleverer pups in a litter by observing them in the early weeks.

I agree with @SpanielsGalore that it's bollocks, though obviously I am not unbiased..😉

In a perverse way it quite amused me to visualise a Borzoi looking down its long regal snooty nose while this silly man gave it 100 repetitions of the same command and it ignored him more than 75% of the time. If it was my dog I'd be quite proud of that 😁

@VanGoSunflowers Labs are 7th.

We have routines for walks. They sit to the side of the front door and wait while I open the door. Then keep waiting until I say "Come on then."
Some days they'll do it perfectly. Some days they'll move before they are told. And some days they'll refuse to sit.
Not sure what that tells anyone about their intelligence.

Same with at the beginning of the walk. They start on lead. Then sit and wait while I take their leads off and only move once I say "Go on then". Some days I can walk away from them and they'll stay sitting. Some days they'll run off before they've been released, but when I say "a a" they'll come back and sit. Which always amazes me. I mean, you have your freedom. Enjoy it. 😂 Other days they won't bloody sit even though they don't come off their lead until they do.

Anyone would think they are sentient beings rather than robots.

That is now my favourite photo of all time; I love it more than all my pictures of nobhead Bill.

Sorry, but Bill with the dummy in his mouth is still my favourite ever pic on here ❤

@SpanielsGalore Anyone would think they are sentient beings rather than robots

Precisely! Mine definitely doesn’t do what he is supposed to do a lot of the time 😀
He also sometimes barks at his own reflection in my living room window.
Funnily enough, when he barks at people outside now his hackles go up! It always surprises me to see it because I thought dogs only did that if they were scared? But his tail is wagging??

@Aubrielle I would be interested to know how he would rank cat intelligence! You’d be hard pressed to find a cat that did as it was told 😂

@LandSharksAnonymous I need to replace Pablo’s sex dog really as it’s too small for him now so I will probably be ordering one of those too 😂

I suppose with cats you'd have different criteria @VanGoSunflowers We think Maine Coons are incredibly intelligent but they're nowhere in the rankings. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of bias, depending what cat breed you have. We had British Shorthairs before and they're much calmer, MC are bonkers by comparison, particularly the boys. They'll play like a dog.

I find it impossible to define or describe our dogs intelligence. They've all been such free spirits, very calm and well mannered but not obedient in the least. They never cease to amaze me with how much they understand though.

@Aubrielle I guess it’s the same as with human intelligence, hard to define and there’s no one measure that makes a human intelligent. And I doubt a human being obedient would count as intelligent (at least I hope not given that we are rebels 😉)
I do also love the characters of cats though. Wonderful creatures, cats. There aren’t many animals I don’t like. Apart from wasps. Wasps can fuck off 😂

This probably belongs on the Adolescent thread really, but nobody seems to post there any more... Anyway, we seem to have reached a point with our girl where she no longer has any interest in toys. She's made that transition into young adult. We've always had a daily garden play session with a large spiny ball or a long tug rope, but she's grown out of it. She's still cheeky and full of fun but just not interested in toys. It's kind of sad because she's no longer a baby.

Thats very funny!! Number 71!! The thing is, if you’ve owned a Basset, it’s not that they don’t understand or are totally stupid, they just consider the command and then decide if it’s worth their time complying. Often if relaxing, they just can’t be bothered! 😆

Same with a Pyrie. They do their own thing without needing to be programmed by a human 😁

Ooh, that’s a bit of a milestone moment when they give up on their toys. My house still looks like a toddler lives here and this morning I had the added joy of her bringing in a plant from my garden she had ripped out by the roots and scattered everywhere. 🙄

Sadly, she hasn't got bored with digging up plants yet @Houndymumma so we still have soil everywhere too 🙄 Now she's in winter coat there's the added bonus of her wandering in festooned with twigs and leaves 😂Definitely not a dog for the houseproud.

Giving up on toys?? 😵😵 my Billy still loved his toys at 4. Especially his teddies which he carried everywhere with him 🥰. He was a permanent toddler!

I felt kind of sad when I realised that I no longer get puppy bitten 😂. Which is a ridiculous thing to be sad about!