August 22, 2009; The Intelligence of Dogs

You have no idea...

There have been a lot of studies about the intelligence of dogs. A recent one says that we have the intelligence of a child of two and a half or so and we understand about 200 words or so.

Wrong!

Children of two and a half may be able to speak a little better but they do not understand nearly as much as we do. There are a lot of reasons for this but primarily it's this: we listen, we don't talk. Because we listen we learn a lot of things—several languages, for instance, and the subtleties of each. Think about it: if humans could only listen instead of yack yack yack all the time, they would—when they could express themselves—speak considerably better then other humans. Stephen Hawking, perfect example. Sure, when dogs speak dog we all sound like morons because, like Italian families, all we do is yell all the time. "Hey! Hey! Hey! Get out of here! Fuck off! Waddya want! Fuck me! Come here and say that!" and that kind of thing. We never listen when we speak dog.

But among humans, we're all pretty much geniuses and it's not that we understand only 200 words or so, it's that we don't chose to notice all the other words that blather out of your big fat mouths. We respond to hard orders, say: "Sit! Heel! Lie down!" because the implication is that if we don't respond to them, violence will follow. We respond to treats like, "Suppertime! Walkies! Want to play!" because that's the only fucking time you're almost interesting. All that other stuff, we chose to ignore.

Sure! We know you don't want us to piss or shit on the floor—what do you think we are, retards? But it's our fucking floor, it's our fucking territory, and that's what it's there for, idiots!

The other part of the study suggests that dogs are smart because we're empathetic; that we'll come over to you when things are hard and put our cute little heads on your knees when you're crying or simply blue.

Well, yes and no.

In Mook Manor, in the last days, I've been doing a lot of that, especially with A who is being pounded by the heat, by wretched medical news and by visits from nurses which always seem to include discomfort and pain. So I go to him when he's staring out into space and put my head on his knee, look up at him with my beautiful eyes and sometimes he even cries a little when he sees me.

Nice, eh?

Well, yes and no.

What I am actually doing is this: going to him when he's down, putting my head on his knee, staring up at him with my beautiful eyes (which, let's face it, can't help being beautiful) and thinking: "Snap out of this, it's time for my fucking walk." He cries, gets it out of his system, hugs me and then rewards me with exactly what I wanted: the walk.

So, in a sense, I do feel his pain...but only when it becomes my pain.