I think my dog might be a genius...
My husband and I have two chocolate labs -- Jake and Daisy. Jake just got new spiky balls that squeak after he finally tore up the dryer ball that he's played with for years. Jake is nuts about the new toy and is constantly dropping it so it will bounce in front of us in an attempt to get us to play. Only problem is that the ball sometimes rolls under furniture and he cannot reach it. He will look for ways to get to the ball himself, and despite being a big brute of a dog physically, Jake has the softest touch when it come to moving things with his body... and will go get us to move things for him to retrieve the ball. Yesterday, we were in the den and he rolled the ball under the sofa that sits next to the sliding glass door to our backyard on one end of it and that has a window AC located at the other end of the sofa. We watched Jake try to figure a way to get to the back of the sofa on the AC side, but he couldn't reach the ball. Jake then ran our the doggy door connected to the sliding glass door and stood staring at the wall right under the window AC unit as if he was trying to figure a way to get to the ball. He recognized exactly where the ball was located on the other side of the wall! He then ran back inside and got my husband to help him.
I've had dogs my whole life, I know that science is just now catching up to realizing animals are far more intelligent than they first believed. I love giving my dogs problem solving games to make them really think for their treats. But I have never had a dog attempt that kind of spatial problem solving. We could see right where he stopped from the sliding door. This was behavior we'd never seen him do. I do not know what else he could have been doing if not trying to get to the ball.
Am I giving him too much credit?
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