Reply #3: More info Dog's being smart - using reasoning- with proper vocal apparatus

[papau]

they could converse with humans as well as a 2 or 3 year old.

But they say Rico who is 9 years old and did not start leaning his English and German words (he is bilingual) until his owner was laid for a year when Rico was 10 months old, is not at this point smarter than a 2 year old because while he is doing precisely what a child does, just not as well, a 2-year-old human knows more than a 9-year-old dog, having a better memory, and a better ability to understand the minds of adults. So Rico's limitations reflect differences in degree, not in kind. Indeed Rico's 250 word limit reflects no limit on Rico - they just ran out of objects in the house - and his score in the scientific tests of 47 out of 50 correct is better than my kids would have gotten at 2 and 3!!

I liked that He also responded correctly when told to put the item in a box or deliver it to a specific person - again better than my kids!

And the use of logic test on Rico, where they placed a new item that Rico had never seen in the room along with six of his toys and told him to fetch the new toy using a new name, and where he got the correct item seven out of every 10 times, was the test I used on my kids to prove to me that their ability with simple logic (the exclusion principle) meant they were geniuses.

The LA Times reported that biologist "Sue Savage-Rumbaugh of Georgia State University, who has taught a bonobo ape named Kanzi many symbols that it uses to communicate, said Thursday that she had obtained similar results with two dogs but had not published them. She thinks that Kanzi, Rico and other animals probably understand words well enough that they could speak if they had the proper vocal apparatus. Rico might already be trying to speak, if only we could understand him, she said."