SENSORY CAPACITIES AND INTELLIGENCE OF DOGS 



17 



explains, has been talked to constantly 

 almost from birth in much the same 

 manner as a young child during the years 

 of taking on language, and it was this fact 

 of the extensiveness of such experience 

 and its possible effect upon the dog that 

 made his case particularly interesting. 

 Mr. Herbert believes that Fellow has 

 picked up from this long contact with 

 mankind some four hundred or more 

 words, and that he understands these 

 words in much the same manner as a 

 child under the same circumstances would. 

 By the term "understanding" Mr. Herbert 

 seems to mean no more than that definite 

 associations have been formed between 

 specific words on the one hand and specific 

 objects, places or acts on the other. As 

 a layman he has no opinion to offer re- 

 garding any so-called mental or subjective 

 content of the dog's mind in connection 

 with these words, claiming only that the 

 words operate in some manner as the 

 essential signals in determining the dog's 

 behavior. From conversation with him 

 we gather that he doubts the ability of 

 the dog to recall the words voluntarily, 

 in a manner supposedly characteristic of 

 human thought processes, and thinks 

 of the dog as being capable of merely 

 recognizing or identifying the object, 

 place, or act when the word is spoken 

 in the presence of the corresponding thing 

 or event. He does not consider the facts 

 in the case to offer any positive evidence 

 of reasoning in the more technical sense. 

 Our personal acquaintance with both 

 the dog and his owner began on September 

 Z9 last when we went to the Pasadena 

 Hotel, New York City, at the request of 

 Mr. Herbert to witness the performance of 

 Fellow and to make such tests as we might 

 see fit. Mr. Herbert was anxious to have 

 his opinion of the dog's ability checked 

 up by psychologists. 

 ' Aside from the matter of responding to 



words, no special claims were made for 

 the dog. As his master explained, Fellow 

 was not a trick dog — had not been trained 

 to perform any unusual stunts. He had 

 quite successfully played, indeed, the 

 usual roles allotted to his species in 

 movie-melodrama — those of protecting 

 the helpless and saving the drowning 

 child, had starred in "Chief of the Pack" 

 and other animal cinemas, but no special 

 effort had been made to develop in him 

 unusual motor performance. His claim 

 to special attention lay in his accom- 

 plishment of responding to a large number 

 of human words in some sense or other, 

 and the problem before us was to deter- 

 mine in precisely what sense. 



Mr. Herbert recognized the possibility 

 of error in a layman's opinion regarding 

 the ability of Fellow along linguistic 

 lines and received us in a questioning 

 rather than an argumentative mood. 

 From the first he showed every willingness 

 to cooperate with us in an honest effort 

 to discover the facts in the case. In 

 truth, Mr. Herbert deserves great credit 

 for the straightforward attitude which 

 he has maintained throughout the tests, 

 regardless of their effect on his own per- 

 sonal opinions concerning the ability of 

 his companion and friend. He has not 

 sought to explain away failure in certain 

 cases by insisting that the tests were 

 unfair, the dog indisposed or tired, or by 

 any of the escape mechanisms often 

 employed by professional trainers to 

 preserve the reputation of their protege, or 

 their own personal illusions of special or 

 mysterious genius. That the owner of 

 the dog was thus able to enter into the 

 scientific spirit of the enterprise and give 

 us a free rein in testing the dog had much 

 to do with whatever success has attended 

 our efforts. 



Our first examination of Fellow was 

 strictly private, only one person being 



