Dogs are smart/intelligent animals correct?

Question

If so, then why do people say; "if you don't catch them in the act of doing something wrong, then you can't correct them later, the won't remember." How smart is that? And do you believe that? I truly believe that animals remember! I know when I take my dogs to the vet they get nervous, so they either remember the spay/neuter experience, shots or something traumatic for them. So who's to say that won't remember chewing, peeing, pooping, etc. when you go to reprimand them no matter if it's 15min, and hour or however much later????

Answer 1

It's important to them to recall painful events, like shots and such that go on at the vet, or someone abusing them, etc. They don't have the reasoning skills like humans to know that you are scolding them for something they did which to them was just another event in their day, like pottying in the wrong place or chewing something. Natural survival instincts let them remember things that caused pain, or things that brought pleasure. Connecting a scolding with a past event requires reasoning and deducing skills, which dogs do no have.

Answer 2

Intelligence has nothing to do with whether they remember or not. Dogs live in the present. That does not mean they remember nothing. They remember events which leave an impression on them. For example, if the dog touched an electric fence, they would remember that fence and be fearful of it and avoid touching it again. If the dog peed on the carpet (and you were not home to repremand it), nothing occurred at the time that marked that behavior so the dog has no reason to remember the event. The dog does not have the ability to look through it's roster of events of his day and make an educated guess as to exactly what you're mad about when you finally get home and decide to punish him. The same is true about a pleasant experience. If the dog did a trick and got a treat, with a small amount of reward, the dog will remember how to repeat the experience because the act was meaningful to the dog. If you were to get the dog to do a trick and it never got a reward, it would likewise be unlikely to remember the event and recall how to do it later.
The immediacy of the reward or reprimand does not mean the dog necessarily CANNOT figure it out. it simply means that the further away the marking (the reward or reprimand) is from the actual behavior, the longer it will take the animal to figure out the connection. If you make that time long enough, the dog is unlikely to ever make the connection. That is why people went to clickers for training. You can 'mark' a behavior immediately and very quickly get the message across to the dog. It makes for much quicker training.

Answer 3

I get asked this question All The Time as a dog trainer. The most important thing to remember here is not their memory but how dogs form associations in learning. Associative learning is one of the primary (and easiest) ways dogs learn. The association of punishment is associated with the most recent act! If the dog just greeted you with a wagging tail and you yell about the garbage can he immediately associates the yelling with his most recent action, greeting you happily. He doesn't ponder the cognitive aspect of the garbage can and you yelling, just the most immediate connections.
I've had many clients who don't understand why the dog runs and hides when they get home, and its because they yelled/disciplined the dog for tearing up the house and he associated that with their return. (They claimed he knew he was bad, but he kept hiding from them after he stopped puppy chewing and didn't tear up the house anymore, he just always thought he would be punished when they returned whether he had been good or bad.)
Dogs are smart, but they are dogs, they live in the moment (in many ways this is the joy of dogs, they Live Life and take every day and moment as it comes).
Now when it comes to recalling the vets office you have to remember that you percieve things cognitively and your dog lives in a sensory world. The smells of disinfectant, medication and other animals can be overwhelming to a dog even though you can barely smell it. Also an anxious dog crying in a kennel and other sounds can also cause anxiety or nervousness in your dog. And most dogs don't visit the vet often so it is frequently a "new" or unusual experience for them.

Answer 4

A dog doesn't speak English. When you come home and find poop and yell at the dog, he doesn't know why. Is it because he's sitting in the kitchen? Is it because he was on the couch? Is it because he blinked twice? Is it because he watched a birdie outside? How is he to know? Perhaps he's in trouble because you came home. He just doesn't know.

Rubbing his nose in it , yelling at him, screaming at him, hitting him, spanking him, etc, makes him be afraid of getting caught. He's in trouble because you found the poop and are now abusing him because of it. Perhaps next time it will be in a shoe or hidden in a spare room so that he doesn't get abused.

A dog can directly relate a vet to fear. The see the vet, they get a shot, and they are in a cold place, sterile, unfriendly new place.

You tell me, you are staying someplace and someone comes in and starts screaming at you in Esperanto. Do you understand what you did wrong? Ok, the Esperanto speaking person takes you someplace where you get injected with something, where people you don't know put their hands all over you, where it smells funny, and where you are put into a cage and then wake up hurting. Even though you don't speak Esperanto, you know that it was scary and not fun. You remember that.

Answer 5

They are smart, but they live in the present. They DON'T think like people do. Think of them as alien beings. They have a different frame of reference.

If you correct them after the fact, they truly will not understand that it's for something they did earlier, they think it's for whatever they were doing when you went to correct them. Because they live in the here and now. To them, consequences are immediate.

Answer 6

Good question. I wonder too how people know what a dog's memory is. If I come home from work and my dog has done something he shouldn't, I can tell from the second I walk in the house. He starts cowering before I even take my coat off, long before I know what he did wrong. He not only remembers doing it, but he remembers that I scold him for it.

Answer 7

it is VERY likely that they will remember all these things,.... but if youre going to scold them for it dont! they probably remember all the things that you listed so they wont know whitch one you are scolding them for.

Answer 8

no because a dog killed a little girl in the news 5 years old