Is this dog smart or dumb?

May 13, 2011 • 3:09 am

by Matthew Cobb

Dog wants man to throw ball. But man is statue. Dog is confused. (NB the statue is in Sackville Gardens, in Manchester, UK…) EDIT: As ATP points out in a comment below, and as I should have known, the statue is of UK computer scientist Alan Turing, who committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide (this is the “ball”). He had been prosecuted for homosexuality. [EDIT#2 – see comment 12 below] The government has since apologised (!) for his prosecution/persecution, and he is celebrated in Manchester, with a large street named after him, and a new building at the University for maths, computer science etc.

72 thoughts on “Is this dog smart or dumb?”

      1. I think you’re right – it could most certainly have been trained to do it. And I’ll still say: it’s the STICK the dog wants thrown – couldn’t care less about the ball/apple.

        1. I agree–dog is fixated on the stick. Could they have been playing with the dog right before the video was shot in such a way that made the dog think the stick was being “thrown” by the statue? (i.e.–standing behind the statue so as to be obscured by it and throwing the stick?) That video is quite short–maybe they were able to fool the dog for *just* long enough to get 45sec of video?

  3. Strange, wouldn’t the dog have smelt that the statue wasn’t a real person? Or am I totally misunderstanding how a dog’s sense of smell works in identifying persons/non-persons?

    1. I’ve seen dogs barking at other dogs that were on the TV, or on the other side of a window, so I’d guess they don’t rely completely on their sense of smell.

      2. My friend’s dog–a wonderful animal, but profoundly neurotic–will randomly fixate on an object that suddenly appears in her view by barking, staring, barking, until the object goes away. If the dog is in the front seat of the car and a leaf lands on the windshield–Armageddon.

  4. This is not a question of smart or stupid – this dog must suffer from some deficiency of its sense of smell.

    1. Border Collies weren’t bred to strenghten their sense of smell. Doesn’t mean they don’t have one, but probably don’t rely on it much. As long as the dog could work, it’s genes got passed down.

      Cute video, I believe the dog is sincere. Border Collies get obsessed like that. I know one that jumps at shadows continuously, when he’s not herding chickens.

      1. I was going to say much the same. We have two border collies, and they’re generally more sight oriented than smell oriented.

        Boder collies are exceptionally intelligent as non-humans go. They can aquire astonishingly large vocabularies, even distinguish between general and specific terms. They are, however, extremely obsessive. This dog probably sees it’s “job” as chasing that stick. The stick is the only thing that really matters to it here.

        1. My cousins owned a ranch in CA when I was a kid, and they had a border collie that would, if you pointed a finger towards the pond (and you could be standing ANYWHERE on the 120 acre ranch when you did so), would immediately run as fast as it possibly could all the way to the pond and launch itself as far into it as it could go.

          …then it would come all the way back to you to see if you wanted him to do it again.

          They picked it up as a stray, and SWORE they never actually trained him to do that.

          1. Border collies can be amazing!

            And we should all realize that talents vary in species other than human! Funny how even some scientists still act as if other spp were cookie-cutter-ish.

      2. Or the dog could be enjoying the attention it’s getting. I’ve known a few dogs that will continue to do something silly just because it’s letting it be the centre of attention. I did see the dog look towards the camera more than once to make sure everyone was still watching.

  5. How ethologically fascinating! The dog’s excitement & eagerness are stimulated by the image of a human, overriding the dog’s extremely sensitive nose which should surely tell it that the statue is inanimate. Domestic animals have smaller brains than their wild counterparts as is well known.
    See this interesting article by H.Frank from Zeitschrift fur Tierpsychologie
    Volume 53, Issue 4, 1980, Pages 389-399
    Abstract-
    The paper first argues that under conditions of domestication animals are necessarily selected (incidentally or otherwise) for (1) responsitivity to a broad band of stimuli and (2) behavioral plasticity. The consequent tractability of domestic animals is contrasted with the stimulus-boundness and response stereotypy of the fixed action patterns observed in wild animal behavior. It is suggested that this difference accounts for the differential trainability of wolves and dogs. The second section of the paper presents observational evidence that although capacity for observational learning. It is then noted that since observational learning requires recognition of means-ends relationships this conclusion is inconsistent with the claim that wolf behavior is largely instinct-bound. Finally, these conclusions are reconciled by hypothesizing that the wolf possesses a “duplex” information-processing system, a primitive “instinctual” system that mediates basic survival responses and a more recently acquired “cognitive” system that evolved as the wolf became a group hunter. Neurobehavioral and developmental comparisons of wolf and dog suggest that these two systems have become integrated into a single scheme in the course of the dog’s domestication.

    1. Good stuff, Dom!

      Domestic animals have smaller brains than their wild counterparts as is well known.

      I did not know that…

      1. I think it is also suggested that it is connected with breeding out aggression but cannot quote chapter & verse. It is suggested that we are also ‘domesticated’ as humans. You can note that sapiens brains are smaller now than in prehistoric times – see this radio programme
        http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2011/01/25/are-humans-getting-dumber/
        You can google Dr Colin Groves of the Austrailian Nat.Uni. & brain size or look him up on Wikipedia – he has an ant-creationist slant on his web pages.
        What a sad nerdy librarian I am!

        1. But I suspect that Ken Miller and Francis Collins could produce many emails from Christians who decided it was ok to believe in evolution because of their example.

          To the benefit of all of us!

          Thanks, Dom, gonna look your link & suggestion after dinner.

          So the brain downsizing doesn’t have anything to do with not needing huge olfactory (& hearing; motion-sensing; etc.) areas, once you can process info & act conditionally?

          1. Just now noticing–the blockquote in my previous post was supposed to be of your “What a sad nerdy librarian I am!” Must not have depressed a key enough, but worse I totally didn’t proof-read. GAH!

            (And BTW, I didn’t even notice your “ant-creationist…”)

  6. I think the man is Alan Turing; the ‘ball’ is the cyanide-laced apple with which he killed himself.

      1. Hmm… I applaud that Turing is commemorated, cof course, but this seems a little macabre. What would the statue look like if Turing had cut his wrists or hanged himself?

        /@

          1. No more macabre than the crucifixes showing bleeding wounds or St Sebastian or Socrates drinking the hemlock for the matter of that. I suppose some people would think that Turing was in good company, not exactly a martyre to science but as homophobia is a religion inspired mental aberration he could be regarded as a martyr to atheism?

          3. The crucifixes are part of a cult of suffering/death.

            Turing actually celebrated life a lot of the time. I like the way, after his conviction, he went to Norway for legal sex and then incorporated a mysterious Kjell function into his mathematics.

          4. David’s painting is called “The Death of Socrates” and shows him reaching for the hemlock. It invites us to think about the circumstances that brought him there, and the reason he is reaching for it (it wasn’t suicide).

            (Anyone who thinks Socrates died a martyr to reason should read I.F.Stone’s book, which presents Athens’ case much more clearly and makes him much less sympathetic.)

          5. Yep — it does make you think, which is laudable. But none of the “Death of Socrates” pictures – David’s, Dufresnoy’s, Lavallée-Poussin’s, Saint-Quentin’s, Peyron’s – are in a public park…

        2. “this seems a little macabre.”

          Really! OTOH, maybe the artist wanted to make a point of the extremis this man was driven too by collective lunacy…

          Also–isn’t this a particularly bizarre way to do oneself in?

        3. I agree. He could have been holding
          * a pinecone, because he was interested in the Fibonacci series embodied in them, or
          * a gearwheel, because he actually got his hands dirty making mechanical computers unlike his fellow students, or
          * a rotor from an Enigma machine. (Q. Which had more effect on the world, his work on computing, or on Enigma?)

          The manner of his death is ambiguous. We don’t know if it was
          * suicide (delayed depression after his persecution) or
          * accident (his mother’s view, because he was careless with chemicals and poisons, or
          * the final experiment to find out if there is an afterlife, garnering useful – to him – knowledge only if there is one (a view seriously put forward in, I think the play Breaking the Code)

  8. I vote lacking a sense of smell.

    Shouldn’t dog figure out “not a person” due to distinct lack of person odor?

  9. My vote is smart and dumb. Smart, because the dog is clearly processing fairly complex visual information and translating that information to a perceived intention on the part of the statue. Very few organisms on the planet could do that. Dumb, because obviously the dog is doing this incorrectly to amusing and/or tragic results.

  10. This dumb dog is off-topic (again), but I have something very smart to say. I’ve been clean and sober for over a month now, and here it is:

    I’m quitting the use of alcohol, marijuana, and prostitutes — forever. I’m doing it for Richard Dawkins, and especially for myself.

    I’m also doing it for Jerry Coyne, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, A.C. Grayling, Stephen Fry, Ophelia Benson, Russell Blackford, Steve Zara, and all the other GNU Atheists who have helped me very recently to see the value of science and reason. With a clear mind and renewed vigor, I intend to set a good example by living the rest of my life as a moral one, to the best of my ability, and to assist these fine people wherever possible, in their efforts to secularize society and marginalize supernaturalism, until my very dying breath.

    I will bookmark and screen capture this post, as proof of my lifelong committment. Professor Coyne, I thank you in advance for allowing me to post this here, on May 13th, 2011.

    Signed,

    Stephen M. Dayton

    1. Well, good for you! Report back to us here from time to time!

      cheers,
      jac

    2. Stick with it Stephen. And keep hanging out here. I’ve enjoyed your comments.

  11. I have a dog-sized metal sculpture of a bulldog. It is blue, and has flowers instead of spots, and a heart shape where the heart goes. We got it on our last trip to Chicago. My live action bulldog barks incessantly at it whenever one of her toys rolls too close to it. She acts as though the sculpture is trying to take her toy from her. She seems to recognize the “doggyness” of the thing, but is not quite smart enough to see that it is not quite a dog. I’m sure no cat would be fooled by such a thing.

    1. I’ll back that up anecdotally: Pretend to throw a ball. In my experience a dog will think you threw it and run a little way before s/he realizes s/he is not sure where it went. A cat knows that it is still in your hand, and gives you the “Do I look like an idiot to you?” look.

      1. Pearl(my dog) will not even wait for the fake. As soon as you pick up the ball, she runs to where you threw it last time.

      2. Depends on the dog. My border collie mix takes off at the first fake attempt; she’s so passionate, I feel guilty trying to fool her. My pit mix CANNOT be faked. Believe me, we’ve tried!

        1. No, no. I feel completely comfortable generalizing on anecdotal evidence provided by my limited experience. What’s wrong with that?

        1. Yes, can we please get the toilet smear off the post altogether? It’s really insulting.

          The true story is galling enough (Wikipedia):

          In January 1952, Turing met Arnold Murray outside a cinema in Manchester. After a lunch date, Turing invited Murray to spend the weekend with him at his house, an invitation which Murray accepted although he did not show up. The pair met again in Manchester the following Monday, when Murray agreed to accompany Turing to the latter’s house. A few weeks later Murray visited Turing’s house again, and apparently spent the night there.[47]
          After Murray helped an accomplice to break into his house, Turing reported the crime to the police. During the investigation, Turing acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray. Homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom at that time,[48] and so both were charged with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, the same crime for which Oscar Wilde had been convicted more than fifty years earlier.[49]
          Turing was given a choice between imprisonment or probation conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal treatment designed to reduce libido. He accepted chemical castration via oestrogen hormone injections.[50]

  13. I agree with the smart/dumb evaluation. Smart visual recognition, dumb not to be corrected by smell.

    I was once walking with a lab I know on the U of Washington campus here in Seattle, and spotted a life-size metal statue of a husky, so out of curiosity I went up to it with the dog. He promptly went to the tail end and started to sniff – and (while I burst into wild shrieks of laughter) instantly backed off and lost interest.

    Actually maybe that explains this dog. My dog friend didn’t catch on until he stuck his nose right under the tail. The video dog doesn’t ever get that close (and anyway the spot under the tail presumably smells pretty strong).

    And yet they do detect scents at a distance, of course.

    Still – it’s probably something like that. Attention plus proximity required to recognize lack of animal smell.

    1. I’d buy that. With all the human scent present in an average street there would likely be enough different scents around that determining which particular one corresponded to ‘Turing’ was a low to non-existent priority. Just throw the stick! Oh please throw the stick! Hey mister, wanna throw the stick?

      1. Heh. Exactly. Mostly a matter of attention, helped by a little distance. Some dogs really focus on the stick/ball/spiral rubber thing on a rope/frisbee.

    1. It’s a rainbow flag; a gay site says that there are many such flags throughout Manchester marking places of (historical?) interest to gays.

  15. I know I’m a little late to this party (making my way through hundreds of items in the RSS feed) but this totally reminds me on an “accidental” experiment I saw on Myth Busters episode where Jamie & Adam change faces using masks (a la Mission Impossible). The interesting result is that Jamie’s dog is totally confused by this and runs to Adam (with Jamie’s face) and not his real owner whose smell should have given his identity away. This tells me that dogs look at us and use visual clues way more than we think.

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