[ExI] genetics

[BillK]

On Tue, 1 Mar 2022 at 16:43, spike jones via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> None of the three Dobermans would fetch a stick.  If you threw it, they
> would sit there.  If you pointed, they would look at your hand.  You would
> tell them to fetch the stick, they would just look at you with a puzzled
> whaaaaat expression.  The neighbor's retriever knew to fetch a stick when he
> was 4 months old, no prompting required.  My dogs would watch him do it and
> get good-boys, but mine never did figure out to do likewise.  (Perhaps they
> were puzzled by the retriever, reasoning: the tall one threw it away, so
> apparently he doesn't want it, why do you keep bringing it back you silly
> dog?)
>
> With animals, including the human kind, it depends on the IQ test Billw.
>
> spike
> _______________________________________________


The internet knows everything.   Dobermans don't have the retriever
instinct that Labrador Retrievers or  Golden Retrievers have.
Dobermans were bred as guard dogs, not for retrieving shot game birds.
Dobermans can be trained to play fetch, but it has to be a job to be
learned and can take a while for them to understand what you want them
to do. They are smart dogs, though, but it demonstrates the difference
between instinctive behavior and learning for work tasks.

BillK