All posts tagged intelligence

Do you wonder if your bird dog is intelligent? I think about intelligence all the time and try to evaluate it in my dogs. Over the years, I have asked a number of pro-trainers how they define it. One of these trainers was Dave Walker, and he said intelligence and natural ability were the same things. The more intelligent the dog, the more natural ability he had. It took me a while to understand what Dave was saying because I was thinking about intelligence in human terms, kind of like a dog IQ test, but intelligence is best viewed in relationship to a breed’s purpose. If the breed’s purpose is to find birds, intelligence is measured by how successfully these dogs hunt or, as Dave said, their natural ability. I began studying my pups to evaluate their natural ability. Continue reading →