5 ways dogs make their intelligence felt

Pet lovers are divided on their opinions about which animal makes for a better pet: dogs or cats. Dog-lovers love to flaunt the intelligence of their pick as one of their primary arguments in the debate. These claims are not unfounded though. Dogs are pretty smart. They can learn tricks, understand human language and even sense emotions. Animal psychologists believe that dog intelligence is at par with that of a two to two-and-a-half-year-old human child. Here is why they think so. 

Dogs are highly trainable 
It’s no secret that with a little positive reinforcement, dogs can easily be taught how to do little tricks like shaking hands and rolling over. With some focussed help, they can be trained for a large variety of functions. They are frequently helpful in carrying out activities like search and rescue, herding livestock, guarding, sniffing out drugs and explosives, assisting the disabled, and even recreational functions. 

They can read people 
Chimpanzees are known to be the closest to humans in terms of evolution, but even chimpanzees aren’t as adept at understanding cues as dogs. Many experiments have been carried out on this subject. One of them involved a set of two cups upside down with a hidden treat under it. Chimpanzees and even human babies were unable to understand the implicit communication of the person carrying out the experiment to find the food. However, dogs went for the correct cups at far higher rates, understanding nods and stares of the person as cues. 

They can learn up to 250 words 
Dogs have varying capacity to remember things. Many dogs, however, can be trained to remember hundreds of words. A dog called Chaser even managed to learn 1022 different toy names back in 2011. 

Dogs can empathise with their owners 
Loyalty is one of the most defining traits of dogs. We all know that they build an emotional attachment with their owners. Studies have shown that like humans and primates, dogs are even capable of feeing emotions like jealousy. When dog owners give attention to other dogs or even robots, their pets find ways to handle the situation and attract their owners’ attention back to themselves. 

They eavesdrop conversations 
Numerous studies have found that dogs don’t just sense the tone of the conversations between humans but they actually eavesdrop on the conversations, picking up words and phrases to assess who is a danger to their owner and who isn’t.