All our dogs are clever. More competent than the current President of the United States that’s for sure. They’re not all equal in this regard. To misquote Shakespeare, some dogs are more equal than others. But Chewie has learned things. Not just words though his vocab is better than some humans (see US President above), he’s also learned transactions and the value of transactions.
He knows what the word ‘treat’ means but he also knows what ‘trade’ means. And he knows the difference between the two. He knows that ‘treat’ is something that happens randomly while ‘trade’ is transactional. He knows that if he gives something, he gets something in return and he leans on that as often as he can.
The other dogs are also smart. They know if Chewie makes a trade they’ll get a treat because the humans are emotionally soft and not wanting any dogs to feel left out is our soft spot. So Chewie does a trade and all the dogs get a goody. It’s a great system Chewie has built and the other three are exploiting.
This is Chewie captured during a typical trade where he’s offering something up. He’s a smart boy.
Dogs ARE pretty smart.It never ceases to amaze me how clever our mutt is.
How she seems to understand what we are saying much of the time.
How she knows that if I go out the door wearing a different pair of trousers, then she’s not coming with me.
How she knows that it’s the weekend and we don’t need to be woken up early.
She’s bloody clever.
And then she’ll ruin it by doing something pretty stupid, like barking at the standard lamp.
Either way, dogs are just brilliant fun, aren’t they?
It was Orwell.
Of course it was Orwell. I was confused. Dogs are brilliant though.
We’ve never had a dog, but several of our cats would calmly snuggle up to us if we were properly ill. Oh, and Snickers the Maine Coon could ride a skateboard.
Weren’t the cats just waiting for you to die so they could eat your face?