Can dogs think strategically?

A "smart person thinks" before acting, so thinking is something like "trialing". Animals, it is said, do not think, but "react" only, they act in the moment and "instinctively", but never according to plan ... really not?

So smart are our four-legged friends

 Our boxer Lulu had set up a collection of cardboard boxes, and whenever he thought of it, he set out, got a box, and proudly presented it to the amazed audience. His collection outside on the terrace had already suffered badly in the wind and weather. But he guarded her like his eyeball, and he did not tolerate any other dog snooping on it.

Status symbol cardboard box

One day the whole family was sitting on the terrace, the old Lulu asleep at the feet of the hostess. Then came Duki, the Hovawart youngster, took a box and proudly presented it to the pack. Out of deepest dreams, Lulu jumped up, and everyone stopped breathing ... But - "the old man" did not jump on "the sinner". He petrified, lingered for two seconds, three seconds, then turned off and disappeared into the house. And a little later we heard it rumble far away. The rumble came closer and closer. And there he stood: Lulu, the unbeatable. And he presented a box, which was not only brand new, which was so big that you hardly saw the dog behind it, so bulky, that the boxer could hold it up only with difficulty ... Duki but, the young pound, went and put silent and silently his cardboard back to the side ...

He knew exactly what he was doing

What was that? Everything just a reaction to here and now, without any imagination, every plan, every insight, every rehearsal in the head? It would have been so easy to chase away the carton to the young male, nor did the big young male submit to the smaller "old man". And for a second it looked as if Lulu would instinctively react the same way. But he did not attack. He left "sinner" and carton on, went out, through the house, down the basement stairs, through the basement, opened the heavy iron door to the lumber room, where I picked up "my" boxes, picked the largest one and steered it around every corner , up the narrow stairs again to the outside: "Look! My box is much nicer, much bigger than his! "

Dogs think and plan quite well

Since I witnessed this "action," I no longer believe that thinking, planning, insight are "purely human skills": Lulu MUST have "thought something" when he suddenly faced the rebellious young dog giant. He has a perception (the young male is cheeky, but also big) with a memory have linked (in the basement, there are much more impressive boxes). He must have had a plan (how to get it) and an idea (how you can impress much more with these boxes). And he must have come in the short seconds of trialing, thinking to the insight that a cumbersome, but targeted "counter-demonstration" in this case "smarter" than a quick but risky brawl with the now 20 kg heavier young male. And even Duki, who was his life rather an "instinct bundle" than an "intelligence beast" showed after this demonstration learning and insight: No, he did not simply imitate the "old man" and laid out his own cardboard collection. He lay down a collection of sticks and kept them ...

The fact is that animals can think

Since the American biologist D.R. Griffin 1984, "as animals think," has also become common among pure scientists to allow at least some (the "smarter") animals something like "cognitive abilities," a kind of mind-based cognition, learning, weighing, judging , Think. In the meantime, people even know what human beings recognize when dogs "think": on dogged behavior. The dog has something in front of it, gropes, stops, and then does something completely different ... Today, therefore, one no longer says: "Man is the only being that ...", one says: "There are great differences, but the are not fundamental, but only gradual. "And the biggest difference between man and dog, that is probably the typical human question:" Why? "Dog ad: Among the best dog products on OTTO.de can also from the, what your partner is doing, be surprised (because they expected something different). They can then shake their heads clearly about their partner, even criticize him "palpably" (because he behaves in their view "extremely stupid"). But, "Why?", They never ask ... Why? Because they accept us and our world - despite criticism from time to time - as we are. And that is probably also the secret of the ancient human dog relationship box: dogs talk, ask, criticize. But a justification, a justification for our behavior, they do not ask us to do so.