Why dogs are not quite as daft as we think…
As scientists suggest Rover is not that bright, Boris Starling asks who’s the dumbest: pets or their owners?
Dogs are not that bright after all. So says a team from Exeter and Canterbury Christ Church universities, which has found that dogs are no better than pigs at identifying humans by their smell, no better than goats at following human pointing, and no better than pigeons at remembering things. Pigeons!
As the owner of two greyhounds, Velvet and
Dash, all I can say is this: tell me something I don’t know. If there are stupider creatures out there, I would very much like to meet them.
Dash is so stupid he doesn’t even know he’s not human. He sighs when he settles himself on the sofa. He tries to join in conversations (it sounds rather like a jazz trumpeter warming up). If my wife, an interior designer, is doing a photo shoot, he’ll make sure he’s in shot and cross his paws daintily as if to say “Ready for my close-up now, Mr Demille”. He treats going to the vet as though he were a minor royal on a visit, marching into the surgery, lying on the floor and raising a paw to signal that he’s ready. When he barks the house down at four in the morning and I go downstairs to let him out, he honestly thinks I’m as pleased to see him as he is to see me. Out walking in a field, he’ll run round and round in circles at top speed while Velvet watches him with a winning mixture of pity and disdain.
Not that she’s exactly knocking down Mensa’s door. She’ll stand by an open door and look completely gormless, as though she’s forgotten not just where she was going but the entire rationale behind the concept of doors themselves. In the six years she’s lived with us, she’s never been upstairs once. She bounds through the garden and then looks surprised that she hasn’t fallen over.
And despite repeated exposure to it, they still haven’t worked out what a vacuum cleaner is, alternating between thinking of it as a scary roaring canine-seeking monster or an erratically moving animal to be herded by barking, chasing and nipping until it retreats into its silent understairs kennel.
Needless to say, none of this matters. They’re lovely, and warm, and funny, and loyal. Besides, intelligence comes in many forms. Like all dogs, they’re incredibly emotionally intelligent. They know when you’re down, and know, too, the value of simple touch, to nuzzle up to you and comfort you with their presence. We may have given Velvet and Dash the love they never got in the first period of their lives (they’re both rescue dogs), but the love we’ve
got back from them has been many times that. Last year, I wrote a book called Unconquerable: The Invictus Spirit,
about the Invictus Games and the men and women who compete in them. One of the competitors was a former Canadian soldier called Christine Gauthier, and she would sign off all her emails “Christine and Batak”. Batak was a Labernese (a mix of Labrador and Bernese), and he would do everything for her: not just helping her keep her balance when she was getting in and out of her wheelchair, or picking coins off the floor and a hundred other practical things, but most importantly knowing when she was upset and sitting quietly with her. “Without Batak,” she said simply, “I wouldn’t be here.”
So, are dogs really that stupid? Dash can perform complex calculus, in order to work out precisely where in the kitchen to lie, and in what configuration, in order to cause maximum inconvenience to those preparing Sunday lunch.
He’s also indulgent of me calling him the same name over and over again: Hoozagoodboy. Like every dog in the world, he knows he must answer the same 10-question quiz on a daily basis: Who’s a good boy? Who is it? WHO’S A GOOD BOY? Is it you? Is it? Are you a good boy? Are you my best boy? Are you? Are you really? You’re my good boy, aren’t you?
To which his answers are (probably): I am. I told you. I am. I heard you the first time. (Sighing) Yes. Still yes. For the love of God. I am losing the will to live. How do you hold down a job? I think you might be mildly cretinous. I’ll be anything you like if you shut up.
Come to think of it, he and Velvet get to sleep whenever they like, are fed twice a day, and watered, and loved, and generally have nothing to do other than please themselves, while their owners run around working, paying bills, cooking, cleaning, washing and so on.
Who are the stupid ones now? In my next life, I want to come back as a greyhound: clearly in every way a higher form of being.