[Aaronneyer]

Comparing intelligence in animals is such a hard thing to do when we barely understand it in ourselves. As they say in the article, we frequently consider dolphins more intelligent because they are more sociable and exhibit similar characteristics to us.

An easy (although not necessarily correct) way to define intelligence could just be the ability to learn, although even this can be hard to define. Some animals can learn fast, while others have a larger space in their memory. As was pointed out, dogs are able to learn significantly more words and more complex phrasing than other animals, but at the same time they have been conditioned for a very very long time to understand human voices, dolphins much less so.

Dolphins are in a completely different environment, which results in completely different conditioning. Perhaps the reason they seem similar to us is because they are in a similar place in their environment. They're fairly independent species, not relying too heavily on other species, or being heavily preyed on by other animals. This could allow their brains to evolve in a similar way to ours, which aligns with our definition of intelligence.

[jms18]

Another problem in "dog intelligence" is that a lot of it is misconstrued with obedience. Sure, dog A and dog B both understood the command you issued; and the one that gets labelled as "intelligent" is the dog that chose to follow that direction versus the other dog who made up his own mind as to what to do.

Most scent hounds are perfect examples of this. They never have high representations at obedience competitions, but put an obstacle between them and what they are tracking, and you will see amazing problem solving skills.

[rickdale]

You are absolutely right. I heard on one of the 9/11 shows there was a very limited number of dogs capable of working at that type of scene searching for people/bodies. And by limited I think it was like < 30 in the entire world.

At home I have a rottweiler(ruby) and she is really smart and obedient. She is driven by life. If that makes sense. My brother a has a doberman and the dogs hang out all day every day, but the doberman is driven by food. When we used to have the doberman at the junk yard she would run around through broken glass and other stuff and always be fine. I can teach both dogs any trick in the world, but the doberman has this innate unexplainable overriding intelligence through problem solving. It's pretty cool.