KS - GG and KPC "taught" me to do the vid thing. Play the vid on youtube. Put your cursor over the vid. right click. (box appears) Select "Embed Video Code". Come back here and paste into the text box where you type your message. The video will drop right in.
Dogs are SO amazing! They are NOT supposed to know how to use "tools", or think in the future. Well.....I've been around them most of my life and I've seen them do both.
Of course, this IS an Aussie, so right there you already have a dog that's smarter than a lot of people!
Funny stuff. Years ago, I used to work for a contractor who had a herding type dog (I think it was an Australian) and that was the funniest dog and you could not build a fence to keep it in the yard. He used to get complaints from neighbors because when the school bus dropped off the kids, he'd herd them around. He never bit any of them, but these were pretty little kids and they were probably scared. This was in the early 90's and before portable cameras were practical for these sorts of things so one day he had me watch how the dog got out of the yard and when that dog heard the school bus, he ran up his kid's slide, jumped probably 6' horizontally onto the roof of a shed and then jumped out of the yard to herd kids. My boss didn't believe me when I told him how he got out and had to see it for himself.
Sometimes dogs seem so stupid and then other times they're pretty surprising with what they know.
When my daughter was young, we had a Sheltie. My daughter was her "flock", and when my daughter was playing in the backyard the dog would constantly run around her barking and "herding" her. She was also the smartest dog we've ever had. Stockdogs tend to be like that.
At night the dog would sleep on the bed with her, and when I'd check in on her before I went to bed I'd poke my head through the door and the dog would pick her head up and give me that look like..........."All's clear boss, I'm on duty!" We loved that little dog!
I had a lab quite awhile ago and he was a great duck dog.
It got so that if my buddy and I dropped two birds, the dog would go to the closest bird and if he thought it was dead, he'd go right on past it to the second bird.
He'd pick up the second bird, then on his way back he'd grab the first bird and bring them both to me at the same time.
I didn't teach him that. He just figured it out on his own.
When I was in third grade I got a boxer. Well we had a little hill in front of the house so I had my sled and told the dog to sit and I sledded down the hill on my belly on the sled. The dog watching me the whole way. The next time I did it the dog ran and jumped on my back sitting down for the ride. He would do it every time I sledded down that hill.
