Dognition: Canine Assessment Toolkit

[corbinam]

Around a month ago a friend of mine posted about her dog's experience in a beta-test of a canine cognition test created by a company called Dognition. I received an email from Dognition about a week or two ago and was offered a really great discount on the Canine Assessment Toolkit (the test itself). I treated myself to the test for both dogs for my birthday (heads up--without the discount it is a bit expensive).

A little about the science (from Dognition's website, linked above):
"Dognition is not about ranking dog IQ scores. It's about discovering which skills your own dog relies on to navigate the world -- the ones your dog excels at as well as the challenges. Knowing your dog's 'cognitive style' can help shed light on where your best friend is coming from -- and the new places your relationship can go."

Dogs are tested on the canine cognitive dimensions they've defined on their website as: empathy, memory, reasoning, communication and cunning.

Each test is more like a game, and helps Dognition come up with a profile categorizing how your dog processes different games, challenges, and requests. Honestly, they were mostly a lot of fun! I really loved watching the dogs think through different things, and of course they thought through most games very differently.

It took us almost a week (they recommend that you don't do the games all at once--each section takes 15-30 minutes), but we finished tonight and received each dogs' individualized reports.

They were completely SPOT ON! The report was able to define what I've always known about the dogs, but was never able to verbalize.

One nugget from each of their profiles:

Lexi was categorized as a "Charmer". Tagline? "A smooth operator, the charmer relies on a secret weapon--you!"

Bentley was categorized as a "Protodog". Tagline? "The protodog is reminiscent of the first dogs that began their relationship with early mankind -- burgeoning social skills allowed dogs like yours to become a much loved member of the human pack."

Anyways, I thought it was fun, interesting, and eye-opening! As they gather more data, they also share information broken down by country, state, category, breed, etc. I can't wait to learn more!

(PS: More detailed information found on my blog, here if you're interested)

[Chris]

Until I read your post, Ashley, I thought this was a dental kit.

[SheltieChe]

One game that was avail to me for free I found very silly. It is based on dog training and not dog behavior, i.e. my dogs are trained for that behavior- look at the treat when I point with my hand- so it makes this questionnaire irrelevant to me...
Here is review on the book Brian Hare and his wife wrote and it is not great...
http://www.michaelbaugh.com/2013/03/...sses-the-mark/
although Brian Hare´s reputation as a scientist is stellar
time will tell...

[SheltieChe]

http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/the...sessment-tests

[mellie]

Originally Posted by Chris

Until I read your post, Ashley, I thought this was a dental kit.

Bwaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahah !!!!