Horizon

Science has only recentl started to take dogs seriously. 'Horizon; The Secret Life of Dogs' was an amazing programme. An American Border Collie understands about 500 words, maybe 1000. Betsy can even read a drawing, a 2 dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional object and go collect it. Tex must know about 30 or 40 words though I have been reluctant to train him too much as I have always found it a bit humiliating for dogs to be taught to beg, roll over, all that shit. I don't want him to be too well trained. A wolf cub won't train too well and Tex is pretty close to being a wolf than my first dog Pavlov who understood pointing very early on. Tex does get pointing now rather than coming to lick your finger as most dogs do. I have always wanted to preserve his self determination rather than over train him. Chimps don't understand pointing. They now reckon an adult dog is about the intelectual equivalent of a 3 year old child. Not only pointing they can understand the direction we are looking in, they can read our emotions from our faces, our supposed closest primate can do none of these things. Of course, it depends how you measure intelligence. I put Tex as a superior being to myself in many ways, the recent snow has rendered me a virtual invalid where as Tex moves with sleek fluid beauty in a world he was bred for. The programme didn't get in to  all the recent research that proves dogs can lengthen your life, cure you of depression even cancer. We have been together maybe closer to 100 000 years than the 10 000 some have suggested. That is a very close bond. Dogs wouldn't be what they are were it not for us but equally we wouldn't be what we are were it not for dogs. Most dog owners knew all this already but as ever it takes scientists a long time to catch up.