[Dailydrool] Basset intelligence

[dpmcquade at verizon.net]

After I sent the last note out, I realized it was a rich text format. So here's the post in plain text. I hope it comes through OK. I'm still getting used to being able to use Verizon for my Drool posts and have to remember that little switch.

First, the CNN article used a test designed for children, not dogs, so I don't know how valuable it really is to define doggy intelligence. It didn't give a basset an opportunity to show off those bright talents like manipulation, stubbornness, and the ability to connive. After all, they aren't things you really want to inculcate in your child, are they? So of course they will not appear on the test.

I doubt they expected a two-year-old to do a lot of high-level reasoning, so they didn't test for the ability to open refrigerators (without an opposable digit), figure out that continual bouncing and stretching helps you reach the back of the counter or stove, or understand that if you ring the bells on the back of the front door, mom will get up to take you out, and you can snatch her spot on the couch.

The behaviorist who came to us for Abner was stunned--stunned, I say--when I told him that Jane could do that last bit of reasoning (actually she has done all the above listed things). Maybe he hadn't run into it before because he hadn't spent a lot of time around bassets. Are bassets really the Einsteins of the dog world, and they've just been hiding it forever?

Bassets seem perfectly comfortable allowing people to think labaradors and other high-energy, highly obedient breeds are the smart ones. Our hounds quietly capture more treats, couch time, and good food--they are happy and don't have to deal with the press. Why waste the energy? they ask.

The other issue, of course, is how smart the individual animals tested were. Our Jane thinks very well indeed and would come out with a high score. Abner is sort of the dumb blond of our pack, even though he can be a very sweet fellow and isn't at all blond. Abs has no conniving bone in his body, as long as he has place to sleep and enough food to fill his tummy regularly. Bel sometimes connives with Jane to get me to do what they want (I call this being in cahoots), but he's not much of a troublemaker, as long as he has his mama close by.

How many bassets did they test? Were they the brightest ones that they could find, or just the ones they found first? Or maybe they didn't even bother to test and just took folklore as gospel.

Anyway, it won't bother the bassets, as long as they need not waste time proving it to the press.
Pam, with Drew, honed into slavelike obedience by years of failing to outwit the Dashing Bassets