I have always assumed apes are at the top of the pile with respect to animal intelligence. But dogs appear to have accumulative intelligence features which add up higher than apes. The analogy is the ape can do physics but the dogs can do all the other subjects for a higher GPA. [Moderator: You really didn't support your claim. You seem to be confusing intelligence with usefulness to human populations.]

One of the premium intelligence features of dogs is a dog can learn commands in any human language. They have linguistics skills. They can also filter through accents. One can raise a breed in Japan, send a pup to England and it will pick learn English. Send it from there, to southern America and they can adapt to the southern accent. They can even learn sign language. They can be taught to assist the blind, walking through busy city streets. Dogs are much better at working in teams. The number of skills that dogs can learn is very expansive.

[Moderator: Apes are too smart to be suited to the boring types of occupations you describe, and use their own sign language in the field.]

apes maybe smarter than dog..

And pigs are smarter than a dogs but hardly would one choose a hog over a dog for drug sniffing, guiding premises, recovery services in disaster, ranching e.t.c. Some dwarf species of Ponies make good if not better 'guide dogs' though. I don't how smart they are.

Einstein?

It takes an expert in animal behavior to train an ape. But a dog is smart enough, allowing even a child to train it. This is because the dog will participate in its own education and does not need special education.

Apes can be trained to do tasks, but dogs can do jobs, which require judgement in the field. The seeing eye dog has to figure out unique situations and does not rely on monkey see monkey do conditioning.

Dogs can work in chains of command. These chains of command can different species of animals. The herding dog might be the captain in the field. The owner, who is human is his general, while the sheep are his grunts. He knows his place in the chain of command, but given full freedom to make real time decisions on his own.

I can tell you one thing << Dogs are smarter then hairless apes . Yeah considering hairless apes pamper them like gods . Now who is the smart one ? The one that lays around eating bon bons , sleeps when they want . Eats when they want or at least when they bitch and complain about wanting to eat the hairless ape see that as cute and gives them a snack typically .
They don't have to work for a meal either . They are pretty much guaranteed to have someone provide sustainable meals for them. I would say that is pretty smart . It may have taken them a long time to get in that position yet they did . Longevity in train of thought . Long term memory passed down generation to generation appears to be much better than Hairless apes . I don't know about haired apes in the wild . They are kind of an independent lot. Maybe more free thinkers , but I can't say if that is where intelligent lives for sure cause the haired apes can't seem to make libraries of information for the groups to copy like hairless apes and they certainly didn't figure out how to get consistent free meals out of Hairless apes like dogs did .

What about those friggen lazy cats ?

Dogs have co-evolved to respond to human desires, and so they seem much smarter to us than they actually are. It's like looking at a calculator and then looking at a baby: the calculator seems way, way smarter but that's because we're asking the wrong questions.

Dogs don't have the same level of intelligence as apes, they're just really good at doing some of the things we like. Ape intelligence, though, is objectively a scale higher. They have more cognitive power

Apes intelligence stems more from a human projection, where people see their own expectations and not hard reality. To factor out the projection factor, we need to compare an objective output that can be verified independently of the projection bias.

I gave the extreme example of the herd dog who can work within a chain of command with two other species, while making independent decisions in the field even without his human leader, but modify his decisions if the human leader says so. We can even add a fourth species like a fox. If apes are smarter this extreme dog task should be a piece of cake for an ape to learn. We will use this as the litmus test.

I understand an ape can recognize their mirror image. I don't think that compares with the smarts required for herding skills. Any human child can look in the mirror but not all can hold jobs that require independent thought. Relative to the human intelligent scale, mirror looking is based on a child's brain not an adult brain. Herding is more of an adult human task.

Apes are more like actors playing a role; monkey see and monkey do. This combined with projection fools many people. If you see a great apes standing and staring in the distance, some project him contemplating the universe due to his focus. in reality there may be crickets chirping in his head. The human projection will add whatever we wish to see. He is in the zoo because he can not learn to live in the human world.

Maybe the difference is dogs have practical smarts, while apes have reflective smarts. This learning and reflecting tricks people via projection, since evolution says we evolved from the apes, therefore many have a projection bias that involves apes be number one. If apes were number two or less, it makes humans less. They have to be number one.

Dogs don't have hands which makes some things look much better for the apes. If the ape can open the jar this looks smart and ingenious. But we are not comparing apples to apples. Dogs don't have hands so this is not an option for them. This would be like a human who lost their hands having to open the same jar. He can know what to do, but this practical skill will not translate because of physical limitations.

Dogs and can adapt to any environment. Apes are stuck in one spot because they can't adapt since that takes practical and adaptive smarts which go beyond reflective smarts. Dogs will form teams and figure it out for themselves. Apes might do it with humans to copy from. Staying in one place is better for reflective routine, since the need for adaptation is limited.

These difference can make a projective difference. If you stay in one spot, like a specialization, you start to know the nuances. If someone is migrating between specialty environments, they know less in one area. However, giving new situations this generalized knowledge makes it easier to adapt. Once the specialists leaves his field, adaptation drops quickly. The stationary specialist could be part of the affect that backs the projection.

dogs are smarter then apes for sure . I am an ape man and dogs are smarter than me so there you go .
The least that could be said is some dogs are smarter then some apes

I agree with that. Not all dogs or apes are smart. I was comparing the Einstein of dogs to the Newton of apes.

Here is a theory I have about the transition from apes to pre-human in the evolution of humans. If pre-humans evolved from apes in Africa, why would they migrate north into the colder climates during the ice age? It makes no sense to go where it is harder to survive for tropical apes. One possible explanation involves dogs.

The premise is; the interaction of pre-humans and some variation of the dog helped train the pre-human mind away from the ape. If you consider chain of command, migration, omnivore, this sounds more like dogs than apes; departure from apes via monkey see, monkey do.

All it would take are the transition apes finding a litter of wild dog puppies. Apes are caring and puppies are cute and needy. They puppies slowly grow while hanging with the apes as their surrogates moms and pack mates. As the dogs grow into maturity and begin to move for food the apes follow. The apes have grown attached.

Their pets, although semi-wild dogs except them as part of the pack. The migration of the pack causes these pre-humans to become subjected to a quantum increase in new experiences. In the tall grass they need to stand higher to see where the packs goes. The higher protein diet, thanks to their dog hunter friends, causes their ape brain to grow. Eventually, the pre-humans become the leader of the pack.