Intuition in GSD's - Page 2

Sunsilver: Sounds like Ranger is an incredible dog. I also agree it is instinct. Years ago I used to put a baby gate a few steps down on my steps so that Reno would have free reign of upstairs but would not be able to get into anything on the first floor. One night I got up and needed to go downstairs to grab my presciption. I was in pain and still half asleep and started down the stairs. Reno blocked her body in front of me and planted. Would not move out of the way, even with me ordering her to do so. That gave me enough time to come fully awake and turn on the light to see what the problem was. Then I saw the gate and realized I would have took a tumble down them if not for Reno. A few years later I had just moved to a new house (new construction). Immediately Reno was acting funny, pacing, etc. She drove me crazy for two days. I thought she hated the house, but did not think more about it. The next day when I opened the door after arriving home from work - she bolted out the door, and kept running as if her life depended upon it. She refused to come back in the house no matter what I did or said. I took her to my parents and called a friend to come over because I thought something had to be wrong. He immediately smelled a gas leak in the basement. We called the power company and they confirmed the nozzle to the gas heater had never been connected properly. Once this was fixed, I brought Reno home, and she went to he bed and immediately fell asleep. She spent the next 7 years in this house until she past away last month.

Though I have no idea how much is actually intuition, I do believe it can be manifested in younger dogs more readily then older dogs. I think sometimes we do not see it as such and do not encourage it in the young dog and therefore inadvertently discourage it. In some cases we may unknowingly out right discourage it as we do not recognize or understand it. I have seen younger dogs/pups do things that I thought were somewhat intuitional but I did not encourage it at the time, just not thinking quick enough. If a dog has not been encouraged to use their intuitions they will loose them. I also believe there is a danger in giving human charactoristics to dogs. Often Hollywood likes to give them human reasoning skills and sadly the mainstream public does the same. Before one can say a dog does this or that because of intuition there needs to be some type of repetition and rule out other factors in a clear minded effort at getting to the truth. It is too easy to use isolated incidents to say " look, Fido just saved my life because he knew that driver was drunk before he jumped on me and got my attention ". I just use this as an example to make the point that we need to be very discerning with dog behavior and cognitive reasoning, or lack of. All this to say that I do believe dogs have skills that we do not have and have over looked and not explored and taken advantage of to it's fullest, just keep things in perspective.

olskoolgsds, don't worry, I am trained in science, and know how to cut through the B.S. most of the time. And Hollywood, yeah, that's why I put the 'warning' in front of my first post! This is why this sort of thing amazes me so much when it happens, though. Why should dogs alert their owners to a coming seizure? How do they know? No one is really sure, but it's happened often enough that quite a few epileptics rely on a dog to do this, allowing them to get into a safe position before the siezure hits. Unfortunately, it's not a behaviour that is possible to train, so it's difficult to study it scientifically. (And it's certainly NOT a good idea to induce a seizure in someone so we can see how the dog responds!)

This story took place 59 years ago. I was 6 months old it was in the summer and extremely hot. No air conditioning back then. My mother put me outside in a carriage on a slight hill in the shade next to our garage. She set the brake and went back into the house. The neighbors behind us had a large GSD named Baron. He stayed outside, no kennel, no chain just a big dog house for him. About a half hour later Baron was bouncing off our front door and barking like crazy. My mother was scared stiff of all dogs. She went to the window and Baron spotted her, he began barking and looking directly at her then running for about 20', stopping, then looking back at her. He kept repeating this over and over. My mother immediately recognized he was trying to get her attention. She went outside and the dog led her to me. I was lying in the middle of the yard crying in the hot sun. The minute my mother reached me the dog just walked back home. Seems like the brake didn't work properly causing the carriage to roll down the hill, tip over and eject me. Baron somehow realized the situation, somehow knew where I lived and came to the conclusion he needed to get help. How do you figure that, just a pet no formal training. When I was 5 another neighbor had gone on vacation and someone broke a window and got halfway in their house when Baron bit him in the ass and removed him from the house. He made such a commotion that the police were called. When they arrived Baron had the man pinned down and wouldn't let him move. The police saw the broken window and arrested him. As soon as the police grabbed him Baron just walked back to his dog house.

'Bit him in the ass'! Now, there's justice for ya! LOL! Wonderful stories Ninia! It would be interesting to know if this dog's ancestors included some Schutzhund dogs...

My husband & I are both diabetic, I was just diagnosed last year & started on blood sugar lowering meds,& my girl Kali has an ability to sense when my blood sugar gets too low. I had several hypoglycemic episodes, twice I actually passed out, & Kali woke me by whining, pulling at my clothes & hands, once even grabbing my pant leg & tugging as though she was trying to pull me into the kitchen. I am convinced she saved my life. As diabetics go into a hypoglycemic or ketoacidotic state, their body odor changes significantly, so it stands to reason that a dog would smell the changes, but to realise the importance of that change & act on it is outstanding. I have read articles in medical/nursing journals about dogs who can sniff out tumor locations, & identify melanoma on subjects, & this was studied quite extensively, so I don't have any problem believing that dogs, especially our wonderful GSD's, who are so closely bonded to their people, can sense changes in their metabolism, & act on them. jo

I have a male GSD that will react to ANY serious stress that he senses in me, even if there is no immediately apparent threat. He will come and stand crosswise directly in front of me, almost against me. No one has taught him to do this. I think when he senses stress, he interprets it as threat and will place himself there to deal with it, and I'm sure he would.

This discussion is interesting. There are ongoing clinical studies with dogs using their scent to detect cancer in humans. The most success has come in the UK with dogs being able to detect bladder cancer thru urine samples. Trials are still in their infancy,with most studies being started in 2004 but so far the data looks promising. It's amazing what they can smell. Now that's amazing!

My male GSD does exactly the same thing. When he hears a noise he cannot identify, he immediately comes to me and positions himself between me and the noise, pressed against my knees. He has done this since he arrived, as a 2 1/2 year old, SchH1 import. I had thought perhaps it was part of his training, but after a year and a half I'm not so sure. He is incredibily bonded to me and it has become even more protective. Both he and our female are house dogs. We live in the country and my husband travels a lot on business. My female is the alert dog, barking at whatever she cannot identify when she is inside. My male is silent and watchful. Between the two of them, I feel very comfortable staying alone and don't bother with the alarm system. My "alarm system" has eight legs.