The AKA tells us that there are three things that measures a dog's intelligence.
1. Can your dog express his/her need to go outside
2. Can your dog select his/her favorite toy upon command
3. Will the dog let you know when he/she wants to play with you
If these are the measurements of a genius dog, then our dog is a GENIUS
Sasha was to be a replacement for my son's deceased chuaua/terrier cross, named Pochie. When my wife saw an ad in the newspaper they went "up the hill" to take a look at the new puppies. It was raining, and as I was coming home from work, they were just leaving. Although my wife wanted the runt of the litter, a black fur ball, Sasha chose Garret. It was love at first site.
Sasha had no trouble settling into her new surroundings. In fact, even at the tender age of 8 weeks, she had already house trained herself and knew to let us know when she needed to go outside. Another thing that we noticed was she understood the word NO. As a puppy, she would get pretty rough with her sharp teeth when playing. We would say "no mouth", and she would stop biting.
Sasha had a single toy, a rope that I had macramed so that she could satisfy her need to chew. But it wasn't until the summer of the second year that Sasha found a rubber football that had been discarded in our yard several years prior. When Sasha found this ball, buried in leaves she was so excited. You would have thought it was a pirate's treasure the way she carried that ball around for days, constantly squeeking it. She guarded this ball very closely and would growl if a cat even came close to the toy. It wasn't until then that we realized that Sasha would relish each and every toy that we gave her. Now, when we tell Sasha to get her favorite toy, she will pick up the toy, but if she does not want to play with that particular toy, she will put it down and bring us the toy that she wants to play with at that time. She has also learned how to tease. Just as we tease her with the toys, she does the same thing. She'll put the toy in our lap and give us a big smile. When we go to grab the toy, she will take it quickly and keep it from us. Of course she enjoys playing tuggy.
Sasha is being called guardian of all cats. Whenever two of the cats would have a riff, Sasha would first go to the rescue of the underdog, check the cat out, to be sure it was ok, then she would go to the other cat and "stare" at the cat as to psychically speak to the cat. If it was TJ that was being scolded, she would take her right front paw, place it on the cat's back, and then proceed to lick the cat. Needless to say the cat was not happy about this punishment.
This summer (2002), we brought home a cat named Nala. My son was camping outside in our backyard that night. Nala was outside, and suddenly the cat cried. She was being chased by a dog. Sasha immediately ran to her rescue, stopping the other dog from chasing Nala.
Sasha has shown her intellegence by quickly learning new tricks. At times she has been the teacher of tricks. After Pochie's death, his father (Buckets) who was a grouchy, stubborn old dog did not take kindly to Sasha. When it was "treat time", we would ask the dogs to show us where the treats are. Sasha immediately picked up on this, and would go to a cabinet door and would point at it, But Buckets would stand back and let her do all the work. Sasha understood, they could get a treat, they had to show us where they were, so Sasha insisted that Buckets also learn this trick. She would go back and forth to the cabinet and Buckets with enthusiasm. Finally Buckets gave in, and also would show us where the treats were. From then on, Buckets and Sasha were friends. She understood that he was boss, but she would always get her way.
Other tricks that Sasha learned very quickly was to go outside to the mailbox and get the newspaper, she sits up, rolls over, turns around, speaks, plays "lazy dog", (laying on her side, with her head to the ground) and "dead cockroach" (she would lay on her back with all fours up in the air).
Sasha has givin us several years of pleasure, with her personality. There is one thing that annoys me, and for the life of me, I cannot understand what she is doing.... Many times, when we want to play with Sasha, she will not play with us. Instead she goes looking for a cat to talk to. Yes, to talk to. She'll look all around the house until she finds a cat, then she will point at the cat for about a minute or so as though she is telepathically telling the cat something. Sometimes Sasha will play with us after "getting permission" from the cat, other times, she won't play at all.
Sasha is a popular dog. The neighborhood dogs seem to like to visit with her. We have one dog, a Wolf/German Shepard cross (Greata) that walks about a mile every day, to visit with Sasha. Sasha will often ask Greta if it's ok for her to play with me. Greta is big a lumbersom and does not like Sasha to play ball. She'll take the ball and keep it.
We have another neighbor's dog that is a Wolf/Husky cross (Cinnamon). They like playing, and running in the yard. When they get overheated in the summer from playing, they'll both take a dunk into the fish pond to cool off. When we tell Greta it's time to go home, Greta will get a biscuit for her journey. She'll then go next door to get Cinnamon, and bring her home to get a biscuit. Of course Greta and Sasha will get a second buscuit.