[jms18]

Another problem in "dog intelligence" is that a lot of it is misconstrued with obedience. Sure, dog A and dog B both understood the command you issued; and the one that gets labelled as "intelligent" is the dog that chose to follow that direction versus the other dog who made up his own mind as to what to do.

Most scent hounds are perfect examples of this. They never have high representations at obedience competitions, but put an obstacle between them and what they are tracking, and you will see amazing problem solving skills.

[rickdale]

You are absolutely right. I heard on one of the 9/11 shows there was a very limited number of dogs capable of working at that type of scene searching for people/bodies. And by limited I think it was like < 30 in the entire world.

At home I have a rottweiler(ruby) and she is really smart and obedient. She is driven by life. If that makes sense. My brother a has a doberman and the dogs hang out all day every day, but the doberman is driven by food. When we used to have the doberman at the junk yard she would run around through broken glass and other stuff and always be fine. I can teach both dogs any trick in the world, but the doberman has this innate unexplainable overriding intelligence through problem solving. It's pretty cool.