[garrybelka]

My shepherd is by no means special yet he asks 'Why?'.

He plans, hopes, and most definitely has and could express wishes. And while his intelligence is limited and very material in a pragmatic way he does possess a language (that I'm still learning) and he could reason.

He is not into abstractions, but, perhaps, could master one or two with a sufficiently tasty motivation. But he understands generalisations, conditionals and iterations.