[ExI] puzzle - animal consciousness

[William Flynn Wallace]

In Michio Kaku's book, The Future of the Mind, there is a puzzle (page 303)
that makes no sense to me.  Plutarch and Pliny have written about it,
Montaigne, John Locke, George Berkeley, and Aquinas have opined about it
and no one is happy with any solution to whether the dog can
think/abstract.  Here it is:

There are three roads and the dog's master has gone down one of them.  The
dog sniffs along two of them, finding no scent of his master, and so,
without sniffing (!), takes the third.  Did he think?

IMO:  flawed puzzle.  A dog simply would not do this.  Saying 'but if he
did' begs the question.  A creature of scent, he would sniff the third
trail just as he had the first two.  To a dog, smell overrides the other
senses.  Another flaw seems to be this:  how did the dog 'know' his master
went down any of the roads?  But this is not important.

Your opinion?  bill w
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