I literally have no idea what this dog does and does not understand

So, the other day, we (the household, Elka included) were sitting on the couch, watching a movie. Night Watch, for those interested. It's a Russian urban fantasy film based on the first of a series of books by Sergei Lukyanenko. Very much worth checking out.

But I digress.

(this is a blog stock photo, it's not warm enough yet to have the door open, not by a long shot. But this is approximately where she was on the couch, anyway)

Today is Love your Pet day!

Well, we're hanging on here in frigid central New York. Persistent single digits, lots of snow, wind chill....it's been a brutal winter. Lots of laziness, lots of huddling on the couch in hoodies and under blankets. To add insult to injury, even sunny days aren't warm ones. Quite the opposite!

But evidently today is Love Your Pet Day.

In Which Elka understands "If you do X, then Y" consequences

I shared this on the Facebook, but figured I'd make a post about it as well to get the most eyes, because obviously I thought it was cool and thought it was further proof of Elka's smartness, dogs' understanding of things, etc.

We had visitors over the weekend, friends who used to come regularly when they lived closer, but who moved at the end of last year. We've seen them only once or twice since the move. Elka is SUPER EXCITED every time people show up, because she loves all our friends, and she knows their names (even when there are doubles, i.e. more than one Eric, more than one Bryan, etc.)

Conversations with Dogs

Every time we have a "new" person, they must acclimate to Elka. I don't mean in the "we let her do what she wants and so they have to deal with it" way. I mean in the "this dog is as intelligent as a toddler and that can be kind of mind blowing at times" way.

Elka tries very clearly to communicate with us. I sort of get the impression that a lot of Dobermans, and other intelligent breeds, do as well. They want to get their point across. And because we've always talked so much to Elka, her comprehensive vocabulary is pretty good. I've never tried to count how many words I think she knows. I don't mean cues or commands specifically, I mean words in general.

Practically Human, But Better

By now, you've probably heard or even read the article "Dogs are people, too" in the New York Times (in the opinion section, despite the usages of Science™ to carry out the experiment. That's telling, n'est-ce pas?) If you haven't, in a nutshell, the neuroscientist on the case, Gregory Berns, trained (with positive methods and help from a dog trainer) a team of 12 dogs to voluntarily go into an MRI, wearing a pair of noise blocking headphones, and stay there perfectly still for the duration of a brain scan wherein they confirmed brain activity that is indicative of canine emotions.

Never Stop Training

Yesterday, Patricia McConnell posted "Gotta Love That Recall" on her blog, and while I read and recommend her as often as I can, I also noticed the specific phrase which I've poached for the title of this post: Never stop training.

I'd been thinking about this lately, in fact, when a certain long nosed miss started nosing up to peoples' plates in a manner she had not otherwise displayed. I may or may not have been mostly unbothered by this, for it was rarely, if ever, my plate she was getting too close to. This is Elka, who I can leave in the car with McDonald's or other takeout and she will not touch is. Elka, who has been in a room with a coffee table full of nachos and dip and even pigs in a blanket and not touched a thing. Elka, who dropped a turkey sandwich she had in her mouth when I said "drop it", and left along a dropped tupperware of taco meat when I said "leave it".

(forgive the old picture, I don't have a new one of her lurking in the "safe range" of food that is not hers)

Look over there! What's that?

I know it's kind of the stereotype of the dog owner to think that their dog is the smartest and bestest dog of them all. Really, it's every individual dog's job to be the best dog. It's just the way things are.

Of course I have stories like that, though. Where I just couldn't believe Elka's intelligence, or the mental connections that she made to reach the behavioral end. A main reason we picked Doberman is for the intelligence; perhaps we didn't think that through? But it's been great, for the most part!

Book Review: A Dog Named Leaf, by Allen and Linda Anderson

Okay, I confess. A very awesome thing about dog blogging (dlogging, as my fiancé likes to call it) is that people want me to read their books. Me! And I freaking love reading books. Especially dog books. Said fiancé has remarked that he didn't even know this many dog books exist, and yet I keep bringing them home. Or getting them in the mail.

Obviously, when Allen Anderson (of the Angel Animals Network, I later learned) emailed me to see if I wanted to read and review A Dog Named Leaf, I said yes.

What I think of Michael Vick's New Dog

I'm sure you know by now that Michael Vick has a new dog. Angel. He brought her to PetSmart for training! Ooh. Ahhh. Accompanied by his bodyguard, apparently. Perhaps a good move on his part.

It's legal. Nobody can do anything about it. We just have to hope that he does well by Angel. People are keeping an eye, evidently, so maybe that will help.

Dogster.com ran an article about it (linked above), and in the comments I expressed my surprise that he'd selected a Belgian Malinois, typically used as Military Working dogs, police dogs, or for the sport of Schutzhund, and wondered at his plans for said dog. Somebody called me idiotic, which I thought was extra classy (I guess they don't moderate their comments. Though, all in all, this is the Internet. If being called idiotic makes me take my toys and go home, I should seek other hobbies). That individual wondered if I believed any "civilian" should receive that sort of scrutiny when selecting a Malinois. Well, maybe. But civilian isn't my keyword here.

(public domain picture of a Malinois from Wikipedia)

Intelligence: a two edged sword

I may or may not have mentioned it, but I do so love blog hops (you might have noticed). I get to read all kinds of new blogs that I hadn't discovered before, and new people come to me as well! One of these new blogs was Bites and Tales, who commented on last week's Wordless Wednesday and who I went to check out.

Scrolling through, I adored the picture, and then came to a post on a topic near and dear to my heart: Smart dogs.

Is My Doberman Smarter Than Your Honor Student?

I confess, I have one of those magnets on my car. They have them for a variety of breeds, which doesn't seem fair, but that's the way it goes. It reads "My Doberman is smarter than your honor student!" and has a head shot of a red Doberman on it. I couldn't not get it, really.

In Why a Doberman? and Why a Doberman? Redux, I talk about how very smart Dobermans are supposed to be, and how smart I think Elka is. I know it must sound like "mommy pride"; we've all encountered the parent who regaled you with tales of their tot's deeds of derring-do until you could have cheerfully stabbed them, or at least shouted. Part of the reason I started this blog was so I could be dog-proud on the Internet instead of alienating friends, family, and coworkers, who are stuck with me and so I'd prefer they not want to stab me.

I do try to keep it in check, but it is hard not to brag sometimes. But nobody likes a showoff, right?

So, what am I talking about when I talk about canine intelligence? And Doberman intelligence?