Dog And The Child

The domestic dog has a predisposition to exhibit a social intelligence that is uncommon in the animal world. Dogs are capable learning in a number ways, such as through simple reinforcement (e.g. classical or operant conditioning) and by observation.
Dogs go through a series stages cognitive development. As with humans, the understanding that objects not being actively perceived still remain in existence (called object permanence) is not present at birth. It develops as the young dog learns to interact intentionally with objects around it, at roughly 8 weeks age.
Puppies learn behaviors quickly by following examples set by experienced dogs. This form intelligence is not peculiar to those tasks dogs have been bred to perform, but can be generalized to myriad abstract problems. For example, Dachshund puppies who watched an experienced dog pull a cart by tugging on an attached piece ribbon in order to get a reward from inside the cart learned the task fifteen times faster than those who were left to solve the problem on their own. Dogs can also learn by mimicking human behaviors. In one study, puppies were presented with a box, and shown that when a handler pressed a lever, a ball would roll out the box. The handler then allowed the puppy to play with the ball, making it an intrinsic reward. The pups were then allowed to interact with the box. Roughly three-quarters the puppies subsequently touched the lever, and over half successfully released the ball, compared to only 6 percent in a control group that did not watch the human manipulate the lever. Another study found that handing an object between experimenters who then used the object's name in a sentence successfully taught an observing dog each object's name, allowing the dog to subsequently retrieve the item.