Say it ain't so Fido, say it ain't so!

[nosmokes]

dogs cheat. even dogs. what in flying spghetti monster's name is this world coming to? the end is nigh i tell ya, the neocons may be right. time to grab our dumbass flea-bit cheatin furry pals and give 'em an axtra scratch.
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original

Dogs 'cheated' on famous intelligence test

Chimpanzees and two-year-old children are as clever as each other but dogs are not as smart as previously thought, according to a University of Queensland study.

Recent School of Psychology PhD graduate Dr Emma Collier-Baker added tighter controls to a famous logic experiment in which a desired object – food or a toy – is transferred from a small container into one of three boxes.

Subjects then try to identify the box containing the object by pointing at it or walking over to it. This invisible displacement task, devised by developmental psychologist Jean Piaget in the 1930s, tests the ability to “think” about an object that is not visible.

Several decades of research have revealed that great apes (including chimpanzees) performed the task as well as two-year-old children while other animals such as monkeys, dolphins and cats consistently failed the task.

“Dogs were a surprising exception, repeatedly passing the task in several studies in the 1990s. However, our study – involving 35 dogs of various breeds – showed they were using other simple cues to find the object and not ‘thinking' or using logic after all,” Dr Collier-Baker said.

“By introducing a range of more stringent controls to the experiment, we showed dogs had effectively been ‘cheating' to pass the test and were simply going to the box closest to the small container.
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complete story here

[Kutjara]

1. So dogs are lazy and stupid?

Finally, a compelling explanation for why they're Man's best friend.

[nosmokes]

2. but they cheat! lassie and rin and benji and hootch and spot

white fang, they're all cheaters. *sigh* does this mean shepards have been making deals and taking payola from wolves all along? i mean where does it end?;)

[Kutjara]

4. I'll bet cats are behind this.

They broke into the research labs and tampered with the results, to make dogs look stupid and finally achieve the Feline Hegemony.

Scheming furry bastards.

[Broken_Hero]

3. hmmm

how can you understand the logic of a dog, unless you speak doganese? :P

[Kutjara]

5. Well exactly.

There seems to be something wrong with the assumption that the animals that did best on the test were necessarily the smartest. I'd say that the smartest animals were the ones that took one look at the experiment and thought to themselves, "Fuck this for a game of soldiers, I'll be damned before I jump through hoops for a bunch of human geeks."

Nope. Once again, the chimps proved themselves to be the schlemazels of the animal kingdom.

[Broken_Hero]

7. :)

:rofl: :silly:

[FormerOstrich]

6. Don't tell my dogs....

I have one that I play just such a game with all the time. She is a border collie/australian cattle dog that takes playing and toys very serious. I'll hide one of her toys under one of three cups. She can pick the correct cup 9 out of 10 times. I think she can smell it (maybe that is cheating, too).

As far as logic, my other dog is not only logical, she plans in advance. She is (the vet thinks) a border collie/akita. The other night my sister was here visiting and we were getting ready to go to bed. I called for Molly in case she wanted to hop up on the bed with me, but she didn't come. I told my sister to pay attention. She was waiting for us to go to bed so she could come in the office and check for anything we might have left on the desk. I'll go outside and will be playing with them. Pretty soon, Molly will lay down out on the patio and "watch". She waits until I am not paying attention and she will stealthy come back into the hosue to see if she can find something she wants. Then she will sneak back out and lay back down right where she was.

She'll open the pantry and carry off the uncooked pasta. I have to lock my gates because she can open them. With my old trash can, you could hear her as she went by, lift the lid to see if there was anything worth getting in trouble about. I finally bought one of those cans you had to step on to open. It took her about a week and half to figure that out. You really don't get much by that girl.

[xchrom]

8. cheating -- like lying -- are signs of a higher intellect

and shows GREAT survival skills by manipulating the shit of their humans.