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Originally Posted by SirTeddykins  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.! |
I meant to add above that there is always danger in making generalizations but we have evolved to do so because it is quick and easy and is very useful in times of danger i.e. all snakes are dangerous - run! But, we know that not ALL snakes are dangerous and we need not run from every snake to save our lives. Therefore, it is worth thinking about issues beyond our immediate dispositions even though that means fighting with evolution.
I am "dog" tired..lol..but wanted to thank you for always providing such thought provoking posts! Your advice re: Teddy's behavior has been invaluable to me and you do so much good on this site with your vast knowledge and experience.
<hugs from a very tired England> xx