Genius Dogs or Not?

"When I give public talks about dogs and their cognitive abilities, there is one question that people always ask: "Are there breed differences in dog cognition?" For instance, are German shepherds smarter than Labradors or poodles? My usual answer is, "Not really." Of course, there are significant differences between breeds in terms of motivation, temperament, and ability to learn new tricks. However, in general, all dogs perform well in some cognitive tasks, such as communicating with humans, and all dogs struggle with others, such as transposition tasks."

"These dogs are sometimes called genius dogs or gifted word learners. We prefer to call them "label learners" because that's what they do: They learn the labels of objects. The first of these dogs to become famous in both the public and scientific worlds was the border collie Rico. He appeared on a German TV show after his owner claimed that he could recognise 200 objects by name."

Dog breeds differ mainly in motivation, temperament, and propensity to learn specific tricks, while core cognitive skills show smaller breed differences. A rare subset of dogs, called label learners, understand that objects have names and can associate words with individual items. Rico, a border collie, recognised around 200 toy names and fetched requested toys even when removed from potential cueing, demonstrating genuine object labelling. Label learners can flexibly acquire new labels and tend to be more curious, more focused, and to exhibit greater self-control than typical dogs.

Read at Psychology Today