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Originally Posted by Rachael1983  I certainly agree. I think Troy was very smart. I mean I did absolutely no training at all. I said sit, he did without enticing treats and repeating. He just did it. Every command I gave he did. So I think he was very intelligent and easy on my nerves.
Whereas Emma, is smart by way of sneaky. She's easily trainable but she needs incentive to listen. Treats more so than love. She has figured out how to do many things around the house or "steal" things. Example: dirty clothes basket. She has figured that if she moves the clothes with her paw in the holes in the basket she can get to the underwear and pull them through the holes. |
When I first got Toby from my daughter at two years old I knew immediately he was of high intelligence, he has the ability to learn, and he knows words and their associations, he knows instinctively which harness goes with walk and which one goes with ride [as in a car] and even if they are moved and one tries to stymie him he cannot be out foxed. He shows a photographic memory as he knows where he has been and seems to memorize it, Here is an example- when I had owned Toby but one year my wife and I took him on holiday to a small village named Elton at the other side of The Cotswolds in England not far from the river Severn and the Bristol Bore. We all stayed in this remote farm house whilst travelling to see Brian Jones [the ex Rolling Stones frontmans grave] we stayed at this cottage only one week but walked about a bit, four years later we were passing through Elton and Toby got really excited and was quite uncontrollable so I decided to stop. Mindful that this cottage was 2.5 miles up this hidden country road we had no sooner stopped when he pulled me all the way up to that cottage, up that long, long road right to the door of where we had previously stayed 4 years previous, this was no mistake either as there were/are four cottages on that site. It has come to pass since then that this ability he has he puts to good use. I have even tried losing him miles from home, 25 miles once along the seafront at Sunderland, and he shows this ability to get home, always walking in the right direction and never flinching from his set course. I have owned dogs all of my life, my late father did too when I was at the family home, and certainly I know of no other dog then or now that shows the intelligence of Toby ,and he shows it time and time again.