Fergie's Tech Blog

CSM: Why your dog is smarter than a wolf

A fascinating article in The Christian Science Monitor, by Colin Woodward, reports that:

At Eotvos Lorand University's [Budapest] Department of Ethology, visitors are usually greeted not by a security guard, but by a delegation of friendly mongrels, tails wagging. Dogs have the run of the place. They play in classrooms, visit faculty members in their offices, or nap in the laboratories. Animals here are no surprise - ethology is the zoological study of animal behavior - but the total lack of cages is.

And why would there be, asks research fellow Adam Miklosi, who leads much of the research here into the cognitive abilities of man's best friend.

After a decade studying dogs in their human habitat, Mr. Miklosi and his colleagues have accumulated a body of evidence suggesting that dogs have far greater mental capabilities than scientists had thought. Dogs' smarts, it turns out, come out in their relationships with people.

posted by Fergie @ 10/25/2005 04:21:00 PM