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Originally Posted by yorkietalkjilly  Maybe I expressed myself badly or you are over-thinking this concept and you know, learning doesn't always equal intelligence. But have you ever noticed how quickly all big dogs learn a trick/command while toy dogs take far, far longer, in most cases? I can train a large dog in half the time it takes to train a toy dog. It's got to be the size of learning structure within in the brain - just not as many neurons, neurotransmitters and synapses, etc., dedicated to learning in the brain of the small dog as in larger dog because little dogs have less over all brain space to dedicate to learning, need more for basic survival, perhaps, and never needed to work much as big dogs did over the centuries, so their little brains haven't selectively evolved in brain learning structure yet. Seems to me they are just limited by less learning ability of the brain over the big dog, not stubbornness.
I've never personally trained an Afghan hound so I cannot speak to that breed but perhaps, as they have relatively small heads to their overall body size, they have a similar deceased learning brain structure as little dogs do, just need more motivation/repetition to learn. That's just as possible as them being stubborn. What's in it for the dog to be stubborn and forego his treat and praise? They are all about instant gratification and fun when it's there to be had. Trouble is, so many trainers do it with little gusto or effort and as if the dog were in the military, grinding out commands. |
Your experience and perceptions are valid, so I cannot argue those and have no desire to contradict those apart from to say that science does not back up the causation you have attributed to your experiences. The bolded section of your text does suggest that your expectations are going someway towards the success of training when comparing big dogs to little dogs. Our expectations for any event will impact the outcome as all sentient beings, human or animal, are not "passive" agents of learning but active and transactional. In other words, animals do not just soak up learning and we do not just instruct learning. We affect each other by the our expectations, communications, personalities etc and this has no relation to the size of the brain. The brain structure is not relative to learning ability for individuals within the same species with the exception of structural damage or compromised integrity.
In answer to your question re: trainability with dogs, I have found the opposite experience. I have found larger dogs much harder to train beyond basic commands but again, could this be down to my own bias towards smaller breeds? Could be?
Learning does not = intelligence but the willingness to learn through acknowledgement of error does = intelligence. For example, big dogs are happy for a piece of cheese to do as their told but a little dog may weight the pros and cons of a treat ie. does this treat outweigh the discomfort (awareness of this possibility from past experience??) that may follow? The ability to think beyond immediate gratification is a sign of intelligence.
Finally, I can overthink nothing. I am very tired as my metabolism is increasing faster than my biological age and I can rarely stay up and think coherently past 9 p.m. Sadly, my clock shows the time as 9:03 p.m.!