Whats smarter - Rabbit or Dog?

[Scmazter]

Hello.

I juz signed up, and hope im posting this in the right place.

 

Now, a lot is riding on this bet of mine.

I need someone who knows the answer for sure.

What animal is smarter, a rabbit or a dog?

 

Common sence would tell you that a dog, but In my rabbit book I read that rabbits are just as smart as dolphins, which r smart - and that rabbits can learn their names, commands, tricks ect just live dogs. And one rabbit even served as a guard for a nightclub in the US.

 

 

Anyway, can someone people tellme the correct answer?

[Sayonara]

I'm thinking rabbits are not as smart as dogs, no. Dogs don't just "learn tricks"; they can be taught to act autonomously and use both best-guess and specific decision making. All rabbits do is become conditioned to certain stimuli, which can be done with any animal.

 

Dolphins are the second or third most intelligent animal on the planet next to us, there's no way rabbits are as smart as them. That's just ridiculous.

 

Take your fluffy wuffy luv n hugz rabbit book and burn it, quick. It's the only way to avoid losing similar bets in future!

[YT2095]

I`m fairly sure alot of "inteligence" with animals is worked out by brain mass to body ratio. what percentage of overall wieght is Brain.

 

I rem reading a little about that on several sites when I was looking for the most inteligent Bird species

[Auburngirl05]

If you're talking in terms of trainability, definitely dogs, although some breeds of dogs tend to be much more trainable than others, it's all relative. Rabbits are a prey species, and dogs were predators (originally), and correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's pretty accepted that predators tend to develop higher intelligence (not in all cases, but as a general trend). It takes a little more thought to capture a rodent for dinner than it does to capture a patch of grass.

[TWJian]

I agree with Auburngirl05. A predator normally has more developed brains and intelligence because they need to effiecntly hunt down their prey.Dogs also live in packs in the wild,futher demonstrating their inteliegence.Futhermore,long-term domestication of dogs by humans ahve caused their brains to evolve to fit their new lifestyle.

[Auburngirl05]

Evolution of intelligence in predators vs prey is kind of an interesting study in coevolution (arms race style), but it seems generally accepted that predators tend to dominate when it comes to brains, obviously, I guess, because they could never survive if their prey outwitted them every time. Here are some related links if anyone is interested:

http://www.adelphiasophism.com/wls/080genesandexplosive.html

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/1996/ph123/l14b.html

http://bioweb.usc.edu/courses/2003-spring/documents/bisc313-geiger_Coevolution.pdf

 

And a game that I thought was creative, I didn't try it out or anything, just saw it and thought I'd pass it along:

http://ethel.as.arizona.edu/~collins/astro/subjects/evolve-16.html

[TWJian]

I suspect you seen too many cartoons and stories depicting rabbits outsmarting canines.(ie:Brer Rabbit)The predator generally must be smarter then its prey.The food chain pyramid:As we go up the foo chain the amoun of organism severel decreases.

Another example is that dolphins originally originated from the ancestor of sheeps.Its intelligence developed markedly because of its switch of diets(from plants to animals)The prey survives because of its stronger reproductive capabilities(ie: rabbits multiply quickly but are short-lived comapre to dogs)

[Scmazter]

Umm no, I think rabbits are smarter then dogs because one of my books has this written in it:

 

The words 'dumb bunny' may apply to certain homo sapiens of rather scatty nature, but definitely not to our friend the rabbit. Many scientists consider rabbits to be more intelligent then pigeons, and at least one researcher has done experiments which claim to show that dolphins are no more intelligent than pigeons, so let's shout about rabbits being sharper than dolphins!

 

Now, what I asked for is for somebody to tell me the answer, which they are 100% sure of.

And looking through the posts, that hasn't happened yet...

[Sayonara]

at least one researcher has done experiments which claim to show that dolphins are no more intelligent than pigeons.

Spot the out-clause.

 

When was the last time you saw a pigeon performing delicate underwater tasks for the Navy, or entertaining the crowds at seaworld with their sophisticated inter-species interactions?

 

In all likelihood any given rabbit book is going to have been written by someone who is a little bit nuts for rabbits, with the emphasis on the nuts.

[YT2095]

and don`t forget the term "Bird Brain"!

 

there`s no smoke without fire...

[Guest Siientx]

If carrots help your eyes how come rabbits are getting ran over and ate by dogs all the time?

[Mokele]

The plain fact of the matter is there is little consensus among those studying the subject of what constitutes intelligence and how to define it in an experimental (or non-experimental) setting without falling victim to numerous biases.

 

Memory tasks obviously can't be used. Learning? Some species might form associations quickly, but do they really understand them? How do you truly test understanding? How do you design a test that's suitable for comparisons between species that isn't biased by their different behavioral tendencies and mental priorities? How do you reliably differentiate between complex bheavior and intelligent behavior in a way that can be generalized across species?

 

Then, of course, you have the worst part: trying to get the animals to do what you want them to do in the experiment, as opposed to what *they* want to do. If I'm testing monitor lizard learning, I obviously won't get anything from the lizards that insist on doing nothing but trying to bite me, but is eliminating them from the test biasing the sample? How do you account for that possible biasing?

 

It's even more complicated by the fact that inteligence doesn't appear to fall out neatly in broad phylogenetic lines. Octopi are smart (or seem to be), but as best we can tell, squid are pretty dim. Skinks are pretty dense too, but monitor lizards display some astonishing feats of learning and understanding, even problem-solving, providing the context involve either food or hurting their keeper (yes, guess what I have a scar from). And from what I've heard, sea lions are rather clever, but seals aren't terribly great. Crocodiles can make their distant cousins, birds, look mentally retarded.

 

Actually pinning down animal intelligence is pretty tricky, and even the brain-body ration, while seemingly ok for mammals, fails horribly in many cases, such as racoons or, in non-mammals, some snakes (the common water moccassin displays some astonishing levels of learning in captivity, providing the learning is associated with food).

 

There's also the problem of annecdotal evidence. Animals can do one thing that seems very smart, but when you try to test it or get repeatability (especially in different individuals) it either doesn't work or take so much time that it's not worth it.

 

On top of that, we have observer bias. We look into a dog's big-eyed, mammalian visage and see inteligence, even if this is the same animal that repeatedly tried to eat wasps last summer, in spite of being stung many times in the mouth. But we look at a crocodile, and dismiss it as slow and stupid, which, as any keeper or handler with attest to, myself included, they are anything but.

 

So, as of yet, there's no indisputible way to say one animal is smarter than another. In fact, to quote Douglas Adams, "...on planet Earth, man had always assumed he was more intelligent than dolphins because he achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars, and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."

 

Mokele

[computerages]

In general speaking - the dogs are smarter than the rabits. They could understand you, they could be your best frined, and they could play with you. But the rabits could only run faster than everyone, which doesn't prove them smarter!!

[Scmazter]

When was the last time you saw a pigeon performing delicate underwater tasks for the Navy, or entertaining the crowds at seaworld with their sophisticated inter-species interactions?

 

I could say the same....

When was the last time you saw a dolphin dig a giant hole in the ground?

When was the last time you saw a dolphin wash their ears?

When was the last time you saw a dolphin not living inside water?

 

In general speaking - the dogs are smarter than the rabits. They could understand you, they could be your best frined, and they could play with you. But the rabits could only run faster than everyone, which doesn't prove them smarter!!

 

Well you aren't very smart since you can't even spell rabbits right....

Rabbits can also understand you, they can also be your best friend and they can also play with you. Can a dog play tag with you?

 

 

Perhaps I can settle for there's no way to know which is smarter....

[bloodhound]

[spam] i think my chicken is more intelligent than humans[/spam]

 

Definitely Dog would be more intelligent for me.

[Sayonara]

I could say the same....

When was the last time you saw a dolphin dig a giant hole in the ground?

When was the last time you saw a dolphin wash their ears?

When was the last time you saw a dolphin not living inside water?

What? That's not asking the same thing at all.

 

A rabbit digs in ground' date=' cleans its ears and lives on the land because that's [u']what rabbits do[/u]. The examples I gave you were examples of extraordinarily unnatural behaviour which has to be learned and cognitively processed.

[TWJian]

The plain fact of the matter is there is little consensus among those studying the subject of what constitutes intelligence and how to define it in an experimental (or non-experimental) setting without falling victim to numerous biases....

 

etc.

 

Yep,I agree with you.Its extremely hard to pin down animal intelligence because of their varying capabilities.My view is biased because of the books I read.Comparing and testing animal intelligence would be like testing a Quantum Mechanics professor in Literature and vice versa.

[TWJian]

Our views differ because of our different sources of knowledge(ie:books) and the different observations we make(Conclusion:we are biased).

[LucidDreamer]

I agree with Twjian and Mokele to some extent but I believe that certain characteristics of intelligence can be defined and then the animals intelligence can be measured by how well he scores in different categories (Characteristics).

 

Ex. You could create mazes for the animals and see how long it takes for them to discover an alternate route. You could scale the maze to the animals’ size and factor out the differences in physical speed. At the end of the maze you have a suitable treat.

You could also create a series of problems for the animals to solve and record how long it takes them to solve the problem.

 

It would of course only give you limited results but it might still prove useful. I would put my money on the dog beating the rabbit.

[Scmazter]

What? That's not asking the same thing at all.

 

A rabbit digs in ground' date=' cleans its ears and lives on the land because that's [u']what rabbits do[/u]. The examples I gave you were examples of extraordinarily unnatural behaviour which has to be learned and cognitively processed.

 

I consider, those are the things dolphins do....

[chadn]

Ahh, I see Mokele is on this site, should have guessed.

[Sayonara]

I consider, those are the things dolphins do....

What are you saying? That dolphins naturally perform tasks that are unnatural to them, or that the tasks they perform are not unnatural?

 

If the former, you should provide the extensive evidence you will have gathered on comparisons of wild and captive dolphin behaviour. If the former, you are supporting the position that dolphins are superior in intelligence to rabbits.

[Mokele]

Rabbits can also understand you, they can also be your best friend and they can also play with you. Can a dog play tag with you?

 

Friendliness does not denote intelligence, but does make it more accessible. There's plenty of animals what are quite smart, but would sooner turn you into dinner than be your friend.

 

You could create mazes for the animals and see how long it takes for them to discover an alternate route. You could scale the maze to the animals’ size and factor out the differences in physical speed. At the end of the maze you have a suitable treat.

 

Possible, but even that doesn't generalize to animals which are ambush hunters, who's natural reaction to prey is to freeze and wait for the prey to come to them. See, this is the problem, for every solution, there's an exception.

 

You could also create a series of problems for the animals to solve and record how long it takes them to solve the problem

 

Here's another interesting issue: is speed of problem solving really the best index of intelligence? What about how effectively they solve it? Is a fast but mostly rote answer truly comparable to a slow answer that demonstrates what appears to be genuine understanding of the underlying concepts?

 

Ahh, I see Mokele is on this site, should have guessed.

 

Yep, I've got omnipresence down, now to work on omnipotence. I'm like a geeky god with no life and too much spare time.

 

Mokele

[LucidDreamer]

You bring up good points but I still think it's possible to define a reasonable set of characteristics and then judge the animals by it to determine a ballpark figure. By including the results from many kinds of tests you can diminish the effect of some of the issues you brought up.

 

And yes I think speed of thought is a factor of intelligence. Of course its hard to determine whether a speedy good answer indicates more intelligence than a slow excellent answer. Of course we are just talking about simple problems here. I don't think Juju the parrot or Fido the dog is going to come up with an outside the box solution to getting a piece of food from under a box. They are going to dig a hole, knock it over, or chew through it. They are not going to set the box on fire or call UPS.

[Auk]

Although you demonstrated with the rabbit, surprising signs of intellegence. The dog would have to take the prize. Im reading a book about dogs and not only do they obey commands but they also demonstrate a sixth sense about certain things such as knowing when an owner is coming home although he is 15 minutes away and has fluctuating work hours.

The dog