Too Polite to Be Smart?
I came across this Dog IQ test over at The Thundering Herd's blog. You put a treat under a washcloth, and purportedly, the quicker your dog removes the washcloth and eats the treat, the smarter the dog.
I tried this test with Cabana by putting a Wellness puppy treat under this washcloth.
But in the video clip, Cabana won't remove the washcloth. She knows the treat is under it, but I think Cabana is too polite to mouth or move the cloth. She doesn't consider it "hers" and so it's off-limits. (Cabana is extremely good about not monkeying with objects that don't belong to her, although she isn't above sniffing them--hey, she's a dog after all.)
(Ha ha, it's trash day today. You can hear the noisy trash trucks outside.)
So I tried the test again, this time with Cabana's toys. I used a couple of them, hoping it would make the test a bit more even with the washcloth in coverage.
In the resulting video, she gets the treat. But I'm not so sure this means Cabana has a high IQ--it seems too easy with the toys.
But it was fun to experiment anyway! I'd love to hear how your dogs respond to the test!! (GDB puppy raisers could maybe try the test by putting a washcloth over a piece of kibble in the dog's food bowl, since GDB pups aren't allowed to eat things off the floor.)
