
Are dolphins cleverer than dogs? - Bzomak
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20140909-are-dolphins-cleverer-than-dogs
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Aaronneyer
Comparing intelligence in animals is such a hard thing to do when we barely
understand it in ourselves. As they say in the article, we frequently consider
dolphins more intelligent because they are more sociable and exhibit similar
characteristics to us.

An easy (although not necessarily correct) way to define intelligence could
just be the ability to learn, although even this can be hard to define. Some
animals can learn fast, while others have a larger space in their memory. As
was pointed out, dogs are able to learn significantly more words and more
complex phrasing than other animals, but at the same time they have been
conditioned for a very very long time to understand human voices, dolphins
much less so.

Dolphins are in a completely different environment, which results in
completely different conditioning. Perhaps the reason they seem similar to us
is because they are in a similar place in their environment. They're fairly
independent species, not relying too heavily on other species, or being
heavily preyed on by other animals. This could allow their brains to evolve in
a similar way to ours, which aligns with our definition of intelligence.

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jms18
Another problem in "dog intelligence" is that a lot of it is misconstrued with
obedience. Sure, dog A and dog B both understood the command you issued; and
the one that gets labelled as "intelligent" is the dog that chose to follow
that direction versus the other dog who made up his own mind as to what to do.

Most scent hounds are perfect examples of this. They never have high
representations at obedience competitions, but put an obstacle between them
and what they are tracking, and you will see amazing problem solving skills.

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rickdale
You are absolutely right. I heard on one of the 9/11 shows there was a very
limited number of dogs capable of working at that type of scene searching for
people/bodies. And by limited I think it was like < 30 in the entire world.

At home I have a rottweiler(ruby) and she is really smart and obedient. She is
driven by life. If that makes sense. My brother a has a doberman and the dogs
hang out all day every day, but the doberman is driven by food. When we used
to have the doberman at the junk yard she would run around through broken
glass and other stuff and always be fine. I can teach both dogs any trick in
the world, but the doberman has this innate unexplainable overriding
intelligence through problem solving. It's pretty cool.

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jccooper
Somewhere around object persistence and planning actions: I once saw a rodeo
clown's dog in a comedy bit where the clown would remove something from a
barrel and the dog would put it back in when he turned around.

Once, the dog missed dropping the object in the barrel--and then picked it up
and did it again, this time getting it in the barrel. That dog knew he was
performing a certain task, and not just an action. That's stuck with me as a
pretty impressive feat of canine cognition.

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kazinator
> _For decades now, dolphins and dogs have vied for the title of most
> intelligent animal._

According to what source? What are chimpanzees, chopped liver?

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Pxtl
I assume that's removing primates from the running where there are probably a
dozen species to mention.

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dsugarman
and octopus?

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cLeEOGPw
Problem for octopi are that they are not social animals, so their intelligence
consists mostly from problem solving.

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dsugarman
actually they can communicate by changing colors as I understand it

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maxxxxx
It seems to me that a lot of wild animals are smarter than dogs. Dogs' main
ability is to "connect" to us and rad our intentions. On the other hand they
are dependent on us and probably not very good at surviving in the wild.

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webnrrd2k
(I know this isn't cool, but Ob Onion:
[http://www.theonion.com/articles/study-dolphins-not-so-
intel...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/study-dolphins-not-so-intelligent-
on-land,1896/))

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enraged_camel
My friend's dog can open the door, walk in, and close it behind him. Let's see
a dolphin do that!

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aortega
Let's see if your friend's dog can kill a shark by punching it with his nose.

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mike_ivanov
Is "cleverer" a word?

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snarfy
You are more clever than the OP.

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cpncrunch
Can someone post a TLDR?

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cpncrunch
For the downvoters (3 of you): it's perfectly reasonable to ask for a TLDR, so
STOP FUCKING DOWNVOTING.

The article was quite long. I may be interested in reading it, but I didn't
have time (actual work and life stuff to do, you know). However if I can read
an abstract of the study (or at least a TLDR) I can get the info and decide
whether I want to read the full article.

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Dylan16807
It's three pages.

Also the sentences that either contain bold words or are offset make a pretty
good TL;DR.

But again, three pages; the article's already a short summary of several
pieces of research.

(Don't get so upset about people downvoting a non-contributing comment. It's
not personal.)

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cpncrunch
Three pages is longer than I had time to read...a summary/abstract is usually
a single paragraph.

