Don’t pick on crows. They are exceptionally smart.
There’s a PBS Nature episode titled “A Murder of Crows” which shows just how smart these birds are. Crows can remember and recognize a certain person (either for a good reason, or a bad reason) for years and years.
Crows can open a lock. Researchers created a lock system that incorporated three or four pieces, one of which could be removed. The crow figured out how to manipulate the 4 step lock to open a door for food. Removing one piece of the locking mechanism made it a one step lock. The crows went straight to the single step based on visual observation. They didn’t fool around with the extraneous parts at all. That’s amazing.
I love to watch all the corvids. They are, indeed, very smart. I especially love watching ravens being playful. We have had some jays show up in our back yard recently, beautiful birds, if loud. I would happily buy a Chevy Crow or Renault Raven. Hmm, maybe not the Renault after my parents had an Alliance. Not one of their better ideas, though it was delightfully comfortable after the B210 it replaced.
Crows can even figure out how to do multiple step tasks using tools without having the experiment first. NOVA has a special recently on how smart various animals are, and they devised a multi step test that the crow had to solve in the correct sequence to access its treat, The crow went through the process step by step and retrieved the treat with no problem.
Some animals, octopi and some primates, can even learn from watching another of its species solve the problem. Some animals even teach their offspring how to make tools to solve problems.
It turns out that dogs, while considered our “best friends”, can’t do any of these things. They can’t problem-solve, they can’t make tools, they can’t learn from watching other dogs, and they can’t teach their young anything. They can be taught with great effort to perform a response to a particular verbal command, but that’s about it. And it turns out that the dumbest of the species are French poodles.
Interesting. Many dog fanciers say poodles are one of the smarter breeds. I’m not a big dog lover and have never been impressed by their smarts. They spend an awful lot of time looking at you blankly when they should bd doing something. Anything. Just not looking baffled. The behaviors they’re good at, like herding, seem to be instincts that humans have selected for until the dog has an inscratchable itch to herd something. People, puppies, sheep. Sheepdog trials are fun to watch on tv, but they only have to do a few things efficiently. No complex logic, just good training and excelkent obedience. Still fun to watch.
Crows are actually graceful
When I see them soaring overhead, I’m reminded of hawks
I think the most interesting looking ones are the hooded crows
One of the most endearing traits of dogs is their level of intelligence. They are smart enough to know who to obey and fawn over, but not so smart that they can fend for themselves. They are like the eternal 3 year olds. You have to feed them, take them to the bathroom, keep them out of trouble and generally tend to them as you would a toddler. And they return the favor with never ending love.
Researchers who compared the intelligence of dogs with that of chimps noted that, even though chimps were surely smarter than dogs, dogs are the only creatures that will look at an object to which you point.
Seriously…try this experiment with other animals and you will likely find that pointing at an object is an exercise in frustration, whereas pointing toward an object when you are with your dog will result in the dog looking and/or going toward the object that you are pointing to.
And, as to whether or not dogs can take care of themselves, they do have some interesting abilities in this area. While my dog can’t unlock the door himself, when he wants to go outside, he lets me know. I have the tendency to fall asleep at night while watching TV, but my first dog would use his snout to poke me in the belly or on the arm when he wanted to wake me up and let him go out to the backyard. My new dog will lick my face when necessary in order to wake me up so that I can open the door for him. Surely that shows some ability to take care of their own needs.
Dogs are whatever humans have selected for. If you select for smart, you get smarter dogs. If you select for a pointy nose (and the corresponding small brain), you get just that.
If dogs are the only animals that respond to humans pointing at something, it’s simply because we’ve bred them that way. Humans have obviously selected for dogs that respond to training, so the pointing thing should be no surprise. Perhaps chimps would respond if you “pointed” in their “language” (perhaps a head tilt or tongue point).
@MarkM … re: Poodles, my family had one as a kid, and especially the larger ones, they are indeed pretty smart, maybe not at hunting ducks, but at manipulating humans. Maybe its more accurate to say that Poodles are cunning rather than smart. A couple years ago I was at a community festival in a local park. I noticed two teenage boys flirting with two teenage girls, each of the teens enjoying a hot dog. A lady with a Poodle comes by, unknown to the kids presumably, and the girls start praising the lady’s Poodle. The Poodle doesn’t beg a hot dog from the girls, the Poodle goes to the boys and begs a bite of their hot dog. At first the boys are reluctant to part with a bite of hot dog. The girls then say to the boys “aren’t you going to give that dog a bite of your hot dog?” . You can guess what happened … lol …
I grew up with two dogs, a mutt and a poodle. The poodle I grew up with was totally unable to learn anything at all.
But the things I stated came completely from the NOVA and Nature programs I watched. Most of it I never realized. I knew crows and octopi had a reputation for being smart, but they’re far smarter than I ever realized. They amaze me. I’ve watched the National Geographic specials on Jane Goodall’s research in the past, so I had some idea that primates were far smarter than we realize.