the smartest thing yer dog ever did?

[L.W. Baxter]

we were working outside and fergus had the run of the place.

by way of backstory, he is a 2+ year old bird dog, not trained to do anything in particular, and in fact will not bring me a ball when playing fetch. he will bring the ball, but not drop it, no matter how i beseech him, let alone put it in my hand.

on the other hand, he does know that if he roots in the garbage and makes a mess he will be scolded.

so today i'm pruning trees in the orchard and fergus comes trotting up with a plastic clamshell container in his mouth. somebody obviously chucked their deli lunch remains in the ditch on our road frontage, neatly tucking in their napkins and closing the lid before discarding. hey nice job, very thoughtful of you, douchebag!

anyway, fergus comes right up and delivers this clamshell to my hand. might be the first time in our relationship he has intentionally given me something. brought a tear to my eye. i naturally call him a good boy, open it up, and give him the barbecue rib bones inside, trashcan the rest, done and done.

i dunno, maybe this story is not as impressive as i think it is.

anyway, if you have a smart dog story, please share, hopefully it is better than mine.

[Joe (SoCal)]

If I'm running late to get home to walk Ella she will jump in the tub and pee. Now if I could only train her to use the toilet and flush

Edited to add: She figured this out all on her own. Smartest, most sensitive, loving dog I've ever met.

[Breakaway]

Heart-warming anecdote, LW.

If I'm running late to get home and walk Ella she will jump in the tub and pee. Now if I could only train her to use the toilet and flush

My cat does that if I end up staying in the road an extra day or two and her litter boxes are overfull.

Kevin

[Beowolf]

we were working outside and fergus had the run of the place.

by way of backstory, he is a 2+ year old bird dog, not trained to do anything in particular, and in fact will not bring me a ball when playing fetch. he will bring the ball, but not drop it, no matter how i beseech him, let alone put it in my hand.

on the other hand, he does know that if he roots in the garbage and makes a mess he will be scolded.

That describes our old Weim perfectly. Fergus will likely hang onto that mindset for the foreseeable future. Damn that makes me miss her.

Nessie… we affectionately refer to her as “50th Percentile.” Perhaps not even 50th Percentile of all dogs, just Berners.

But the love. 114 pounds of love.



10 pounds of hair.

[Joe (SoCal)]

My guess is that someone else in the family pees in the shower too.

You don’t ?

BTW just took these of Ella - Isn’t she cute

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[JayInOz]

When our boy dog Gus finds a critter in a tree he sits down and watches me and when we make eye contact he looks up into the tree and then back at me. He doesn't bark because he knows that scares the critter. If it's something needs killing he'll stay put while I go and get a gun. And when I head out the door he likes to get in front of me and lead the way. If I stop to get the block splitter and the wheel barrow he knows I'm going out the gate and into the next paddock to split firewood. He's not allowed out onto the road so he races back and grabs a mouthful of dog biscuits and then heads to the fence near the wood pile, drops his mouthful of biscuits and eats them one at a time while he watches me work through the fence. If Dad wanted his dogs to track something he would tell them what he was after, be it a fox or pig or whatever and the dogs would track that and totally ignore any other fresh scent they came across.
And I swear this is true- My missus used to have an old cat. One day the cat jumped up onto the piano and knocked a freshly ironed school uniform belonging to one of the girls onto the floor. The missus let the cat know she was not pleased. The cat jumped down and got hold of the uniform and dragged it up onto a chair and then jumped up and pulled the uniform back onto the piano. The old father in law just happened to be there visiting and watched the whole show. He said if you told me about what just happened and I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would have called you a liar. JayInOz

[JTA]

smartest thing Pearl ever did was pick us as her humans.

Everything Pearl does right is because of her intelligence and natural instinct. Everything she does wrong is because of my superb training.

Jack

[RickBetterley]

Our sons drive Kia Souls. Every time we walk past a Soul Daisy checks it out to see if Jeremy or Chip are in it.
No matter the location, the color, or the year, Daisy will check.
She never ceases to amaze me.
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[Rich Jones]

I don't think Paul Pless will have a smart dog story since he's always
calling his dog ****head.

My wife and I only have had cats.
When I was a kid we had a dog, but "smart" wasn't a term we'd ever use to describe her.

[Jim Bow]

My dog Opie has 5 toys. Gator, fox, badger, donut, and bone. He knows them by name. For instance, if you say, “Go get gator”, he will sort them out and bring the felt alligator.

The rest of you can sit down. My dog is the smartest.

[David G]

The one that impressed me was one fine summer day when I left Beorn at home in the fenced back yard - where he'd never shown any inclination to escape - and rode the motorcycle to the shop. Late morning, he comes trotting in, gives me a look, and plops down in his spot. Five miles or so he tracked me.

I have no idea if getting to ride home behind me on the bike at the end of the day was part of his plan... or just gravy.

[skuthorp]

We adopted a dog from the pound on his last few days before the end. As we passd his enclosure he climed the chain link wire and we reconed he deserved a chance. Scrappy looking thin, grey part Poodle part Kerry Blue terrier, preferred a fight to a feed, hated cats, loved our Newfoundlands but hated swimming and outlived them all, died on my lap at approximately 18.
An escape artist of course, at one stage he was breaking out of the roofed enclosure………… and breaking back in before we came home. I came home early one day and caught him red pawed climbing the outside of the wire. Watched him slip through a tiny gap at roof level and sit down for a rest.

[Tom from Rubicon]

A boy and his dog storey warms my heart while I chuckle.
Dog has you trained to open it's lunch box. I always gave you the benifit of the doubt Lee as to was the brains of the operation. Get back to pickin and grinnin and don't give Fergus credit for nothin.

Tom

[epoxyboy]

If I'm running late to get home to walk Ella she will jump in the tub and pee. Now if I could only train her to use the toilet and flush

Edited to add: She figured this out all on her own. Smartest, most sensitive, loving dog I've ever met.

One of our cats used to do this. He could also open doors, kitchen cupboards, and other things that he shouldn't. The three hounds we've had have been imbeciles - I'm struggling to think of a smartest thing that I could attribute to any of them. They eat, love, and poop. They don't do smart.

Pete

[Joe (SoCal)]

They eat, love, and poop. They don't do smart.

Pete

As someone who is category 5 ( the highest ) allergic to cats, and who spent 12 minutes longer than I should have at my friend with a cats house, gasping for breath, cats SUCK !!!! Dogs on the other hand have been the MOST domesticated animals we've ever encountered.

There is archaeological evidence dogs were the first animals domesticated by humans more than 30,000 years ago (more than 10,000 years before the domestication of horses and ruminants).

No. No , No seriously dogs are more intuitive and connected to us than any other animal on the planet, regardless of freaking cats or what Emily says

[john welsford]

I had a pair of Great Danes, lovely dogs but not the very smartest.
But that said, we went to the beach, a black sand beach on a very hot day, and had to walk a couple of hundred yards through this exceptionally hot sand to get to the water.
The dog pranced and danced, obviously uncomfortable, but the bitch raced ahead a few yards, dug a hole and stood in it, waited until I was well past and repeated that until we got to the waters edge.
I know people who arent smart enough to work that one out!

John Welsford

[JayInOz]

In the summer on the farm Dad used to carry a thermos flask of boiling water to make a cuppa at lunch time rather than risk a fire. He would pick a shady spot to sit and there'd be working dogs running everywhere. Dad would stand the thermos on the ground and then say You dogs- get off the table! The dogs would glance at the thermos flask and back off several yards while we ate. Dad was talking to an elderly female neighbour one day and the dogs were sat near him watching him intently while he talked. The neighbour smiled and said Those dogs really love you! JayInOz

[dutchpp]

My dog is a dachshund and he is exceptionally stubborn
I'm always impressed by these dogs;

[Peerie Maa]

Dunno whether this was clever or dumb, but.
A while ago I was working on our clubhouse roof. Our then dog climbed the ladder to come and find me.

[birlinn]

Dunno whether this was clever or dumb, but.
A while ago I was working on our clubhouse roof. Our then dog climbed the ladder to come and find me.

But could he climb down again?

[Garret]

Not my dog, but a good friend's & I knew Georgia well. Half wolf, half Great Pyrenees - 150 pounds or so. If she knew you, your biggest worry was getting licked to death.

Anyway, when her owner Phil lived "in town", she would occasionally get off (OK, break) her chain & go exploring. She quickly figured out the auto-opening doors at the local supermarket & would trot in, head for the meat counter, grab a steak (we're talking in styrofoam & plastic) from the meat cooler & trot back out again.

Her tail would be wagging the entire time, but it took 6 months or so for the store manager to get up the courage to follow her home. When he found out where she lived, he gave Phil a bill for all the meat she'd taken. Seems she never took anything other than a Porterhouse or T-Bone. None of that lowly sirloin for her!

[White River]

My second dog, Sanka, a mutt if there ever was one, would look both ways before crossing the road. We lived in a very rural area albeit on a somewhat busy road. He was a gregarious fella and went to visit the neighbors regularly so crossing the road was a normal activity. Unfortunately he decided to chase a truck one night a three AM and was slightly run over. He licked his wounds for a day and carried on and from that time forward the look both ways policy was in place.

[birlinn]

Our late shared dog, Beth, was enjoying her first visit to Mull.
We went for our first walk; about four miles from home she got the scent of a deer and went rushing off into the forest.
No amount of calling seemed to work, so we walked slowly home, wondering what we were going to tell the real owners.
She had got home before us, and, as the electrician was there, was sitting on a chair in front of the stove, with a look that said "what kept you".

[John Smith]

Heart-warming anecdote, LW.





My cat does that if I end up staying in the road an extra day or two and her litter boxes are overfull.

Kevin

When I was very young we had a cat that used the toilet. Didn't flush, but peed and pooped in it. That was weird, but cool.

We had a dog that was in our parked car when some guy decided to steal the car. Dog (Buster) not only chased him out of the car, but corner him. Witnesses called the cops and arrested the would be thief.

[Dan McCosh]

Dunno if it was all that smart, but we had a dog that once jumped out of a second-story window to attack the postman coming up the walk. The guy looked up to see if a cat was coming next.

[mister fergus]

Dog has you trained to open it's lunch box.

i was just trying to encourage his snack sharing behavior. leading by example. he often has string cheese and he sometimes gets stingy with it.

i have offered to share my goofers with him before so i don't know why he made a big deal out of this.

[Breakaway]

When I was very young we had a cat that used the toilet. Didn't flush, but peed and pooped in it. That was weird, but cool.

We had a dog that was in our parked car when some guy decided to steal the car. Dog (Buster) not only chased him out of the car, but corner him. Witnesses called the cops and arrested the would be thief.

You win the thread, John!

LOL

[LeeG]

Similar story but more about checking w the boss than smarts. Miles my elderly 110lb Lab/Rot was staying at my sisters for a few days. He had some kind of nerve/muscle problem that followed the wasting that came w an effed up gut so that he couldn’t open his jaw very far. Miles was a tall dog with a big head, some thought there was great dane in there but I don’t think so.
He could rest his chin on the breakfast table. One day he rested his chin right up to a foil wrapped stick of butter and gentle coaxed half of it lengthwise in his mouth then walked into the living room where my sisters bf was to check for his reaction. Apparently Miles took the lack of strong negative to be positive and he sucked the rest down in a millisecond wrapper and all.

Then about 20 minutes later retched it all on the neighbors front porch with a vomitous roar to the neighbor’s small children’s amazement and my sister’s embarassment. He had a spectacularly loud and deep bark when he was fit and equally impressive ROOOORRRPP when tossing his cookies.

[Peerie Maa]

But could he climb down again?

No, that was the dumb part. She came down across my shoulders.

[The Q]

Our border collie knows the names of his dozen toys and will look for the one requested.
He has never been trained as a sheep dog but, he knows, (lay) Flat. Sit, stand, walk on, and stay, all of which he will do by you or at a distance. He knows other commands as well.

We found half a dozen sheep that had escaped from a field. Into a lane alongside, by using the above commands I was able to use Ben to put the sheep back into the field.

[Breakaway]

My last dog was Bart the Wonderdog, a blue tick/ mix. Came to us as a five-year old rescue. We thought him dumb as bricks.
Then, my friend Omar came over and called to him in Spanish: Bart crossed the yard and came right over and sat down!

After that, instead of come and sit and stay and speak and down it was aqui, and abajo, and sientate, and habla and etc.

Bart never would fetch la pelota, though.

Kevin

[Canoeyawl]

A friends poodle which during the day was kept on a lead/overhead cable run in the back yard, came running up front to greet him when he got home. Which was an issue because dog was on the lead, right?
And every day he checked to be certain the dog was on the lead, so what is going on? Each morning before he left for work he would check that the dog was on the lead so wtf?
As it turned out the dog would go over to the lead and sit on it before Jim left for work. And Jim would look and decide "Yes, the dog is on the lead". But No, the dog was only pretending to be on the lead! And had the entire day to run free... This went on for a while until Jim finally "got it"
Which was just another case of the dog being smarter than the owner.

[John B]

Jethro Tull named a whole album after my Daughter's dawg.

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That other one is as sharp as a tack and can pull the unwary over into a full , grass in the teeth body slide.

[Chip-skiff]

He figured out who has the most comfortable bed.

[Priscilla]

This terrierist went to live in abject luxury in Wellywood so now I can eat my breakfast in peace.
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