Wolves Vs Dogs: Intelligence

[Phasoli]

For the sake of characterization, I would like to study the differences in intelligence levels between the wolf and the dog. This information will contribute to the release of a personal project I am working on, so I gratefully accept the answers.

Recently, I have traveled to the Seacrest Wolf Preserve, where I had the opportunity to meet, greet, and play with captive wolves. I had asked the tour guide his opinion: who is smarter? The wolf or the dog? He stated plainly that wolves were far smarter, but I still decided to do some research. So I encountered these videos.

I feel that these videos have answered my question halfway, since it is clear that wolves and dogs express different intelligence levels in different areas. Still, does anyone have any potential answers?

[Koa]

I highly recommend reading pages 63-65 of Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation that comments on a couple of studies predating 2000, which you can find on Google Books:
https://books.google.com/books?id=_mXHu ... ch&f=false

I'll provide some highlights:

"A standard approach to assessing wolf intelligence is to compare it with dog intelligence. Frank and Frank (1987) found that four juvenile wolves were better at standardized problem-solving tasks than were juvenile dogs raised in the same manner (cross-fostering to a wolf mother). . . . [T]he dogs were better at tasks that involved training by a human (Frank and Frank 1982; Frank et al. 1986, 1989). However, the wolves responded to the restraint of a leash or a box in an emotional way that seemed to interfere with their performance of standardized tasks (Frank and Frank 1983). Was this a really fair test?"

page 63

"Hiestand (1989) tested spatial orientation in nine hand-reared wolves (Frank et al. 1986) and forty adult German shepherds using ropes hanging from a ceiling. She did not use restraint; rather, she called out "good" when the individual pulled the correct rope. . . . She was gruff with or ignored individuals that did not behave correctly. Apparently, social interaction with a human caretaker was as effective a reward in training wolves as it is for dogs (Frank and Frank 1988; Hiestand 1989). . . .

The wolves acted differently from the dogs when initially placed in the testing arena: they spontaneously oriented to physical objects in their environment and learned the one-rope task in significantly fewer trials than the dogs (Hiestand 1989). The wolves also irreparably shredded more ropes than the dogs! Hiestand hypothesized that wolves are more attentive to physical objects in their environment than are dogs . . .(Fentress 1967, 1992; MacDonald 1980; Zimen 1981).

. . . However, wolves also show high individual variation in learning ability in captivity (Sullivan 1979; Cheeny 1982; Lyons et al. 1982; Slade 1983; Hiestand 1989)."

pages 63-64

"Claims that dogs are more skillful than wolves at reading human gestures must be evaluated critically. Hare et al. (2002) documented differences between wolves and dogs in a series of object-choice tests. The seven adult wolves less often used human gestures (gazing, pointing, and tapping) correctly to choose between two overturned food bowls, one baited out of view of the subjects."

Mech goes on to describe the potential issues with Hare's study, such as (a the longer, "continuous" amount of dogs' socialization to the wolves' shorter amount of socialization with humans, (b the older age of the wolves compared to the dogs and (c the wolves used could have been "unintentionally" "dull."
page 64

So that's important to keep in mind for the studies I am about to share. There are a couple of modern studies that seem to corroborate the results of the experiments in both videos you provided.

Wolves Are Smart, but Dogs Look Back
By Jason G. Goldman on August 31, 2010 [Research Blog, commenting on Adam Miklosi's study]
Highlights:

[T]hey looked at the performance of each wolf individually. For each wolf, performance on the distal pointing condition was at chance, but one wolf increased his performance such that by the end of the experiment, he chose correctly on 80% of trials. All individuals performed significantly above chance on the touching condition, as is evident in the aggregate data above. . . . Despite this, compared to similar studies with dogs, the performance of the wolves was worse and more variable.

To succeed in the two conditions which resulted in the highest number of successful trials, the “touching” and “proximal pointing” conditions, the wolves only needed to attend to the immediate space around the container. This may explain the higher success in those conditions. In the distal pointing condition, they would need to attend to two locations in space: the container as well as the human experimenter. If wolves do not pay attention to the human, they would be unable to determine the direction that the hand is pointing, and the task could become, in a way, unsolvable.

In order to investigate this a little further, the experimenters designed a second study, involving two behavioral tests: bin-opening and rope-pulling. . . . Once the individuals had learned the task, they were presented with what appeared to be the same task, but was unsolvable. The key variable was where, how quickly, and how long the individual would look after attempting and failing to complete the task.

In both tasks, dogs looked back at humans earlier than the wolves did, and for greater duration. . . . In fact, wolves can be quite intelligent, they just don’t care too much about humans, and therefore perform poorly in tasks that require them to engage socially with us. . . . "

Read the full commentary here: http://scienceblogs.com/thoughtfulanima ... mart-they/

When dogs look back: inhibition of independent problem-solving behaviour in domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) compared with wolves (Canis lupus)
By Monique A. R. Udell, September 16, 2015

Abstract
"While dogs' ‘looking back’ behaviour has been used as an example of socio-cognitive advancement, an alternative explanation is that pet dogs show less persistence on independent tasks more generally. In this study, pet dogs, shelter dogs and wolves were given up to three opportunities to open a solvable puzzle box: when subjects were with a neutral human caretaker, alone and when encouraged by the human. Wolves were more persistent and more successful on this task than dogs, with 80% average success rate for wolves versus a 5% average success rate for dogs in both the human-in and alone conditions. Dogs showed increased contact with the puzzle box during the encouragement condition, but only a moderate increase in problem-solving success. Social sensitivity appears to play an important role in pet and shelter dogs' willingness to engage in problem-solving behaviour, which could suggest generalized dependence on, or deference to, human action."

Read the full study here: http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 9/20150489

[Phasoli]

Thank you so much for such a thorough response, Koa! I'll definitely check these links out.

So far, it would appear as though wolves tend to be more successful by themselves via persistence, while dogs ultimately depend on humans and human assistance. Thanks again! This made my day!

[Koa]

Thank you so much for such a thorough response, Koa! I'll definitely check these links out.

So far, it would appear as though wolves tend to be more successful by themselves via persistence, while dogs ultimately depend on humans and human assistance. Thanks again! This made my day!

No problem. I'm glad I could help. PM me if you need anything else.
Topic locked.