Tool use is not very common in non-human animals, snd in many cases, it is unclear whether the animals are using tools as the result of inherited motor patterns or are actually using learning too use through observation or reasoning.
Chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans have been seen using tools as a result of their novel intelligence. They clearly learn tool use through observation.
Now, I think that is the latter type of tool use that we’re seeing here. This dog probably watched children use that raft and then decided to use it to fetch without getting too wet.
This is actually a more sophisitcated and unusual behavior than you might suspect.
That video is a riot, and that dog is pretty darn smart.
I cannot use tablecloths anymore. The flat-coat knows that anything in the middle of the table is accessible by pulling the edge of the tablecloth until what’s in the middle is within reach. It’s sort of a tool, I guess.
My old Lab could turn doorknobs and operate the ice dispenser, and would play with the blinds by pulling the cord, just to entertain himself watching them go up and down. I’m not sure those things count as using tools, but he was still pretty smart.
All three of my goldens have figured out how to open doors, but the golden boxer never figured this out. I don’t know why.
The famous study that “proved” dogs were dumber than wolves involved pure wolves, wolf/malamute crosses, and a malamute. The wolves all figured out how to open doors, as did the crosses. The Mals never did.
But I read this when I had a super smart golden that knew how to open all sorts of doors, which led me to doubt the long-held belief that dogs are stupid degenerate wolves. I’ve always found that intellectual anemic and tinctured by a quasi-Nazi nature worship.
John Holmes in his “the Farmer’s Dog” has a discussion of setting up a rope for a dog to pull the gate open or to ring a bell as needed. Lots of herding dogs have learned to flip gate latches, pull open gates or other simliar tasks. A lot of service dogs do tasks like this.
VR, Peggy Richter (whose own dogs have to have gate latches that lock because the dogs learned to flip the latch).
Herding dogs and retrievers tend to have pronounced abilities at observational learning from humans. That’s probably the result of intense selective breeding for dogs that pay very close attention commands in the form of whistles, vocal commands, and hand signals. There was a recent study to see if there were breed differences in the ability to read human body languages.
my one year old chocolate labrador has a foot long piece of 3″ x 3″ fence post which he carried around ,,when he is given a bone or chew stick of any length he will fetch the fence post,,place it in the middle of the room,,lay the new chew across it,,using one paw to hold one end of the chew against the floor so that the free end is raised and easily available for him to chew,,he has never been shown this behaviour and i am stunned by his cleverness every time he does it,i am certain this is true tool usage,,,he can also fetch several of his toys when told by name which one to fetch,,he will also take things to his bed when told to,,and take things outside when told to…
How many toys can he fetch by name?
A dog that can do that is pretty special.
he will fetch bones, chews, rope toys and a toy he knows as “bouncy thing”,,he will fetch them even if they are in another room,, i bought him a toy that was supposed to keep him occupied ,,its a ball with an aperture opening like that on a camera,,the idea is to set the opening to a given size and place treats in it that are of the right size to fall out as the ball is rolled around,,it took him 20 minutes to figure out that if he placed his bottom teeth against a raised pattern on the ball and his top teeth against the opening he could turn it, , open the aperture and tip out all the treats at once,,so much for that toy,,it is still fun to watch him do it though….