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Many people say that dogs do not have much in the way of memory and that they do everything by instinct and do not think. Well read this true story of Rooskie the little Papillon and then judge whether or not he is capable of logical reasoning.
Once Rooskie was at a dog class where they were practising for the Kennel Club Good Citizen award. The set-up was that the instructor took the pups at one end of the hall while the assistant instructor took the rest at the other end. At the pups’ end there was a table standing in front of a platform. There were two sets of steps leading from the floor up to the platform. The instructor left her tub of training titbits on the table.
In the course of the evening the instructor took her pups out to the car park and the assistant instructor took the chance to practise the Good Citizen Recall – the Coming Away from a Distraction. The door was closed and the hall made secure. The dogs were taken one at a time to the centre of the hall, let off the lead and allowed to wander around. Then they were called by their handlers.
When it was my turn Rooskie ignored me. He ran the length of the hall and then proceeded very carefully to climb the steps to the platform. At first we all wondered what on earth he was doing and then we realised. From the platform he could get onto the table and hence to the tub of titbits. The assistant instructor raced to save the titbits.
How could a ten inch Papillon get onto a three foot table? No problem at all for a dog with brains.
But that is not the end of the story. Far from it. Six months later Rooskie was having a private lesson with the chief instructor. She was doing heel free with him and he was going well. I was watching him carefully. Suddenly I heard a muttered exclamation from the instructor. I looked up and saw Rooskie on the table with his nose in the tub of titbits.
He had remembered from six months back how to get on the table to the titbits. But this time he was much quicker as he knew just exactly what he was doing. He had worked out how to get onto the table the first time.
So is Rooskie capable of remembering and logical reasoning?
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