Is The Half-Breed Dog Smarter?

Let's take a close look now at the psychology and intelligence of the half-breed dog. While the pure-breed dog joined his family when he was still a puppy and has learned all the customs and habits, the half-breed has to make an extra effort to adapt to his new family's needs and habits. In addition, he must obtain the sympathy of his masters and a bowl of soup.

The need to survive makes the mutt puppy, starting from the last days of the second month of his life, quickly develop his intuition and adapt to different situations. The puppy simply can't wait for somebody to bring him his food; he has to go out and get it. He has to avoid getting run over by a car or getting bit by other bigger dogs. He has to learn to recognize different places and people that tolerate him and the ones that don't. Then, as he goes getting used to the day-to-day survival, not only does his psychological state become different than that of more privileged dogs, but he also develops a keener instinct for hunting; he also becomes more submissive yet more independent. For this reason, street dogs are generally considered to have a more acute intelligence because they are more versatile than full breed dogs, but that superiority is only due to the experiences they have lived. Remember that the full breed dog, although it should be considered a pansy, is almost always specialized in a specific activity: the German shepherd in defense, the Bracco in hunting, the Greyhound in the capture of rabbits and in the races, the Eskimo dog in sleigh pulling, whereas the mutt or half-breed knows a little bit about everything. They are self learned, and therefore do well in many situations: that is why it seems like they are more intelligent.

All in all, you mustn't exclude the possibility that a mutt dog can have the watchdog qualities of a Dover man or be as good of a hunter as a setter. But these are particular cases and, above all, are qualities that disappear with the animal, and cannot be transmitted to the descendants. On the other hand, full breed dogs, because they have been greeted with a particular objective, transmit there specialization to their descendants.

An example of a quality that is almost exclusively known in mutt or half-breed dogs is the ability to look for truffles. The dogs that can do this have been trained to do so, yet it is very rare that they transmit this quality two of their descendants, who, will most probably, have a mediocre sense of smell.