How smart is my dog?

[Romnipotent]

I just got home from work, where I had acquired some promotional merchandise, and I come in the door, my dogs comes up to me all excited gets a pet then I proceed to play a small game;
"Do you want a present?"
I take out a folded up apron and tell my dog "Take it to JT (step dad)" repeated a couple times
he then procedes around the coffee table to stand looking at JT a couple meters away where he is beckoned to approach. The dog then drops the garment at my step dads feet.
Now, we've never done this before and he didn't instantly try to play or maul the apron. What level of INT does he have?

 

[Particle_Man]

No idea. My cat has learned to puke in the litter box when he pukes, after two tries on previous days when I held him over it when he was kaking.

I think D&D says that if you don't speak a language, you are stuck below 3, so that puts the dog at a high int:2, I suppose.

 

[Romnipotent]

But I know people in customer service who cant even manage this! It doesn't add up

 

[arwink]

The DC to "push" an animal to perform a trick it hsn't yet been trained to do is only 25.

I think the more pertinent question is how many druid levels you've got hiding up your sleeve.

 

[Henry]

I find myself insufficient in INT to determine whether this is game related or off-topic, so I'll say "ruff!" and move it to off-topic.

*pant*
*pant*
*wag*

 

[der_kluge]

Speaking of smart animals. I just dropped my car off at the mechanics, and they have this fish in an aquarium in the waiting area. It's a big fish, well, relatively, about 10 inches long or so. Maybe some kind of gold fish. It's hard to say, really. It's gold in color, though.

It's smart. Well, smarter than any fish I've ever interacted with. If you put your finger on the glass, it'll come out to greet it. And if you move your finger, it will follow it. It's the most interactive fish I've ever seen.

Ok, it probably doesn't make it "smart", but certainly more interesting than most fish.

 

[KidCthulhu]

Well, I wouldn't go calling Letterman, but it's pretty good use of two basic dog items. One, they're the only animal that instinctively follow a point. Not even chimps and dolphins instinctively know 'follow this arm out to where it's pointing'. Dogs do, probably because the wolves who couldn't figure out the gesture for "Get out of here you mangy cur" didn't get to hang around to pass on their genes.

The other is naming, which is not instinctive, but many animals can learn names for things or people if the sound is repeated in the presence of the object often enough.

If you're really interested, Stanley Coren has written a book on it called "The Intellegence of Dogs", and he's got a Doggie IQ test in the back.

My dogs are geniuses, of course.

 

[Bloodstone Press]

Dogs are amazingly intelligent. One of my friends has a German Shepherd that seems to understand human speech... like she follows conversations. She knows when we are talking about her. She knows when we are about to leave, even when we haven't moved. She reads human facial expressions.

I know she picks up on a lot on body language and tones of voice.. she doesn't really know too many words... but it is really amazing how much she does understand.

Sometimes she sits at the table with us when we game. She watches the dice rolling with interest and listens when the DM talks... we joke about getting her a character sheet.