Episode 2 The Wonder of Dogs

We're celebrating the great diversity of dogs.

This village in Oxfordshire is giving us a unique insight into the dog breeds of Britain.

And today we'll be looking at how we've not only bred

different shaped dogs, we've harnessed their innate abilities

and trained them to do remarkable things.

We've put their skills to the test to find out

if there really is a limit to what you can train a dog to do.

We'll meet a dog whose bite is worse than its bark,

and one who has learned to drive a car.

We'll compare the intelligence of different breeds

and see if we can teach them to read.

Oh!

And Teg, my Welsh sheepdog, gets her first taste of working life.

That will do!

Welcome to The Wonder Of Dogs.

Welcome back to Brightwell.

So far, we've seen the remarkable physical differences between dogs,

but now we want to show you just how versatile they are.

We'll be investigating vision, hearing and smell,

contrasting their impressive physical abilities across the breeds.

And I'll be uncovering how our own history has shaped these breeds,

turning them into the finely-honed hunters,

herders and guard dogs we know today.

We're setting up a series of experiments

to assess each breed's highly acute senses,

and how these have led to some extraordinary abilities.

But first we want to chart how these senses develop in the first place.

Come here, darling, come on.

Meet Jessie, the cocker spaniel

who's about to give birth to a litter of puppies.

Jessie's owners are the Green family from Droitwich.

Never having bred a dog before,

in fact never having had a dog before until Jessie,

the whole concept of breeding and the birth and everything

is really quite scary.

But I think I'm quite clued up on it,

and I fancy myself as a midwife so I'm quite looking forward to it!

One by one, Jessie's puppies enter the world.

Get you dry, little one.

Little girl!

Come on, gorgeous.

When they're born, they are completely deaf and blind.

Three girls and two boys, and they're all black,

apart from one little boy who has got a lovely white nose.

The newborns have to rely on just two senses -

touch and, even more importantly, smell - to find Jessie's milk.

For the rest of their lives, smell will be their dominant sense.

But just how powerful is this sense of smell in different breeds?

Back in Brightwell, biologist and author John Bradshaw

is about to put one of our village sniffers to the test.

So we've got Dexter the Labrador here.

Just talk us through the tests and how this works.

Well, it's a very simple test.

All I've done is to lay a trail of chicken smell across there,

round the back of the tree and then back into a bale of hay here,

and the dog should be able to track it.

Now, are you surprised that he seems to be completely on the trail instantly?

Not at all, no.

I mean, these are dogs which do this all the time.

They will follow any kind of odour,

I think, which leads them towards food.

And it seems like he has found his quarry. He has found it!

Comparing their sense of smell to ours,

is it much, much more acute?

It's almost unimaginably more acute.

At least 1,000 times, even things that smell really strongly to us

like onions or garlic,

and up to 100,000 times for the best dogs

for things which really don't smell of anything much to us.

And why is that?

Is a dog's nose so different from our own, and the way that it works?

Well, the way that it works is fundamentally the same,

it's a mammalian nose just like ours is,

but there's a lot more tissue devoted to actually picking up smells.

They've got very fine bones inside...

Oh, yes, I can see that. ..the nose. Almost like a honeycomb.

Like a very complicated mesh which first of all conditions the air

and then at the back of the skull, here,

is the bit where the chemicals are actually picked up,

detected and analysed. Right.

It varies a great deal from breed to breed.

Obviously, a dog with a big skull is going to have a much bigger area

than a dog with a tiny skull. So a German shepherd, for example,

would have something like the area of the palm of my hand.

A little Chihuahua,

it's probably more like the size of a 50 pence piece.

But whichever, it seems to be good enough,

and certainly a lot better than our own smell, even the tiniest dogs.

Because the scent detection area of Labradors is so large,

and their long noses channel the air more efficiently

than snub-nosed dogs, they are world-class sniffers.

We're finding new and surprising ways

to put these super noses to work.

We're really lucky to have a truly remarkable dog

with a fantastic nose here today,

cos believe it or not, she can sniff out cancer.

Lou, come on. Good girl! Rob Harris from Medical Detection Dogs

is going to give us a demonstration.

Right, Rob. You're all set up and ready to go.

What have we got here for her to work with?

Well, what we've got set up are two urines

that are from healthy patients. OK, completely normal?

So they should be cancer-free. Yep.

And then one of the samples is from a patient

that's diagnosed with kidney cancer.

Right, so just for my knowledge,

which of these samples should she react to?

So it's the third one down. OK. That's the one with the cancer in.

Let's see how she does. You ready? Lou, see-see.

That's it. That's the, that's the signal!

Good girl! What a good girl!

That, that is... Clever girl!

..that's insane, that, you know, that... It was really clear.

She locked on to that so quickly,

because you literally have only got a drop of urine in each of those pots.

0.5ml. Very small amount.

And is it...

And I take it... Obviously,

if somebody who unfortunately has renal cancer or kidney cancer,

they're going to be shedding

different organic components into their urine,

and that's what she's picking up?

That's what the research is showing so far, and that's the feeling.

It's not yet clear whether this apparent ability to sniff out cancer

will ever be reliable enough for clinical diagnosis.

Obviously this isn't going to replace, you know,

all the standard tests, but if we can train dogs to do this,

it maybe will aid us, will it,

in some way to speed up screening of people?

Yeah, exactly that. That's exactly what we're hoping for.

It's amazing how far we've come.

We've now got dogs that can sniff out medical conditions.

Throughout history, as our needs have evolved,

dogs have taken on all sorts of different roles to help us.

Nowhere has the dog's sense of smell been honed more spectacularly

than in the creation of the gundog breeds.

Ruth's on her way to Heathfield Farm in Oxfordshire to find out more.

Over the last couple of hundred years,

hunting styles and gun technology have changed quite a bit in Britain,

and that's led to a huge variety of breeds by our side.

Whoo-hoo!

Throughout history,

hunters have used dogs' super sensitive noses to sniff out prey,

and they've then married that to three very different dog behaviours.

Pointing, flushing and retrieving.

First up were the pointers, dogs that would sniff their prey

but then, instead of hunting it down, they would freeze on the spot.

Gun historian Mike Yardley has studied

how the evolution of gundogs and guns go hand in hand.

In this era, it would be very much a partnership

between the shooter and his dogs.

The pointers would pick up the airborne scent of the bird,

they'd come in behind it and they'd point where it was.

If there are two, sometimes they'd back each other up,

and you might shoot it or might even throw a net over it.

So the dogs are finding the birds for you?

The dogs are finding the birds for you

and they're fundamental to the whole process.

They had to have a good nose, they had to be steady,

and they had to have stamina.

Those were the vital qualities.

So you need to get your gun loaded before... Yes.

..you found anything really, cos that's quite a long process.

Not quick this, is it?

It certainly isn't quick.

And now we're ready.

Margaret, would you actually let the, let the dogs slip now?

Oh! Interested straightaway.

They seem to be sniffing, don't they?

They're great, they're trying to sense anything their incredible powers of smell can pick up.

And the thing about pointers as a breed

is that you can see they almost look like greyhounds.

They're quite lanky dogs, they can run far and wide,

trying to find that one bird in the field

that you won't be able to see as a human being.

And when they do actually go on point, yeah, look at that. Yeah.

Now we've, yeah, we're coming up to a classic point.

And you've got to be very alert,

as soon as you see the dog pointing,

you walk up straight into it,

through it to the bird. The bird, you hope, will be flushed.

Up. GUNSHOT

But how do you get a dog to go against its natural hunting instincts and freeze?

Back in Brightwell, Kate met up with vet Bruce Fogle to find out.

Now Bruce, tell me what is particularly special with pointers.

Well, any dog that is predating,

that is looking for something to capture, will,

when it sees something, freeze,

work out, "What's my best angle, how am I going to catch it?"

The difference between this dog and others

is we've artificially, selectively bred them to stop at the point.

Very balletic! SHE LAUGHS

Will Otto literally point?

If there's something to point at, he will point at it. Right.

Well, he's not a trained, he's not a trained pointer

but he has the instinct of his type of breed of the pointer group,

that if he sees something he is going to go into the freeze

and stop there, rather than going through for the actual kill. OK.

And here's another pointing breed,

the Hungarian vizsla, actually perfecting this freeze.

But the story of the gundog doesn't end here.

With the arrival of the shotgun,

a very different type of behaviour was needed, as Ruth found out.

This is the sort of gun where you can load it like that,

close it, and now you're off.

Gosh, that is so much faster. So much quicker, yeah.

And it also encourages the development of the new driven

style of shooting, where the birds are driven to the guns in a line.

Let's have a go. GUNSHOT

By the early 20th century, hunters could shoot much faster

and wanted dogs that could not only find the birds

but could flush them out of long grass,

driving them towards the waiting guns.

One of the best at this task was the springer spaniel.

Now Bruce, tell me what is special in this particular breed of dog?

With the springer,

the springer has inherited something that we've accentuated. OK.

And that is a wound-up ability to bounce around and have

tremendous amount of energy, probably more than the average dog.

I mean, she's got wonderful muscles and she's short. Yeah.

She hasn't got a great big body that she has to carry around,

like a pointer for example.

So a pointer would get more tired faster than a springer will. Right.

And then we've altered the brain very slightly.

These have a little bit of obsessive compulsive behaviour in them.

Right. And these in fact are much calmer in that sense.

OK. Well shall we see if Poppy will demonstrate

all these fantastic springer attributes?

Josephine, over to you. Poppy, go find, find, find!

Oh, look at...

Well, you can see the springer immediately!

You see the way she's springing up above the grass level,

looking around. She's looking for Josephine as well. Yeah.

Rabbit!

But Josephine's giving the codeword "rabbit". Yeah.

I personally use "squirrel" with my dog, but it does the same thing,

and you can see the excitement with what she's doing.

And you see her ears flipping around?

Yeah. They're actually stirring up scent at the same time.

So it might look like those long ears are just for show

but they're not for show,

she'll pick up scent with those ears and she'll be better as a springer.

Springers are an energetic and popular breed

but you can't suppress that hunting instinct.

This is Zilla and she's a working English springer spaniel.

This is Bailey, he's an English springer spaniel as well

and he's seven years old.

Likes rabbits. He likes eating rabbits.

He eats the head and leaves the rest of it.

As shooting became increasingly fashionable,

one more type of gundog was needed

to meet the insatiable demands of shooting parties.

There could be up to ten guns shooting hundreds of birds,

so they needed a gundog that could pinpoint where they all landed.

So you've flushed your bird, you've shot your bird,

it's fallen out of the sky and it's up to this chap to bring it back?

Yes, and a Labrador used to be Newfoundland fishermen's dogs.

They're a water dog and they go and retrieve

whatever it might be in the water - a rope, anything you like -

and British aristocrats saw them working

and brought them back here and bred them into a specific shooting dog.

What they created was a breed that could sniff out birds

from hundreds of paces, but would bring them back

and present them like a well-trained butler.

It's fascinating how the technology, the dogs, the sport,

they're all evolving at the same time.

We have here the Olympic champion of retrievers,

the Labrador retriever, the world's most popular breed,

four times more popular than any other breed,

and it's because of that initial retrieving ability. Right.

They were trained to bring things back,

that in turn meant that they were wonderful in responding to people,

that in turn means that they're wonderful as family dogs.

And is Poppy a family dog? Yes, very much so.

Hello, Poppy!

But Penny, is she an excellent retriever? She can be!

So, let's see what you do, Poppy.

Wow! Straight for it like an arrow.

OK, now she's sniffing around. Yeah. And instantly! Good Poppy!

Well done.

Now she brought it back and what's wonderful about Labradors

is that it's easy to selectively breed them to have a soft mouth.

The opposite of that would be almost any terrier.

Terriers will have a hard mouth. A hard mouth.

They would get something, they would grip it... They'd grab it.

They would shake it? Yes.

But a Labrador will literally just scoop it up

and use the mouth as a receptacle to bring it back to you?

That's right, but you still have to train. Yeah.

It's the genetics underlying it, and then training to reinforce the fact

that you don't chew it when you bring it back.

And it only takes seven generations to dramatically change

the behaviour of a line of dogs,

and that's what we've been amazing in doing in the last 200, 250 years,

to create specialised gundogs.

This grass is dog's delight cos you can run through it easily.

Yeah. You have the feeling of speed with all the grass

against the dog's body, they love it, they just love it.

It's just classic doggie heaven.

Penny, Poppy, Bruce, thank you very much indeed.

Now, although many of us don't really hunt any more,

those retrieving abilities haven't gone to waste

because it turns out that retrievers

are wonderful for people who have disabilities.

Over time we've exploited dogs' innate behaviours

as much as their senses.

Charities such as Dogs For The Disabled

have harnessed the retriever's skills

to help people with physical disabilities.

Tolly, ready? Can you fetch phone?

'Emma Belcher has been training Tolly for 18 months.'

Now, can you dial for pizza as well?

Good girl. Yeah, we're getting there! Yeah.

Can you pull? Pull.

Pull, pull, pull, keep pulling.

Do you end up with lots of holes in your socks?

Yes, a few. Go on, keep pulling.

Yey! Very good. Thank you. There we go.

That's absolutely brilliant, that's great.

Obviously those pull and the retrieve are really innate behaviours,

as we've seen, is there anything new you can teach it?

Yeah. So we teach them a push,

so they can help with foot plates, push buttons, light switches.

Push. Good girl. Oh, look at that! Push.

So this is a completely new trick for a dog.

You know, this is not one that a normal gundog would do?

Absolutely. And that, that is amazing.

Tolly, come round, good girl. Come along.

Turn. Good girl, well done.

Good girl, come on. Can you pull? Pull? Pull, pull. Good.

Can you fetch it? Look at that!

Good girl! That's absolutely brilliant.

Thank you. Come round. Good. Can you push? Push.

Yeah, there we are.

Now that is absolutely astounding,

and I think the amazing thing is that it's not just

happening in people's homes, but all across the UK,

there are dogs like this out and about,

helping people with their lives.

They can even go to the bank.

Whereas Labrador retrievers are prized for their soft mouths,

other breeds are valued for the exact opposite.

Ruth has gone to meet another hunter whose stubborn determination

not to let go made it the perfect candidate for an unusual job.

I've always loved Yorkshire terriers,

but why is such an iconic toy breed associated with Yorkshire?

I'm here at a former mill in the heart of Bradford

to discover how this really special dog

is entwined with our industrial past.

In the mid-19th century this was a spinning mill,

producing the finest quality of yarn for cloth

that was exported from India to Australia,

as well as supplying the tailors of Savile Row in London.

At the height of the industrial revolution

the rapidly expanding cities became heavily overcrowded and insanitary.

The rats moved in.

And this is where our four-legged friends come in to the equation.

The dog that came to be known as the Yorkshire terrier.

Richard Hayes is a terrier historian

and the grandson of a Yorkshire mill owner.

He's brought along some of his own terriers to show us

how these little dogs go to work among the machines.

So why were there so many rats here?

Primarily they wanted the grease from the wool.

That was good food for the rat population.

But not cats?

They couldn't bring in cats because they could damage the cloth

with their claws, so they looked around for another alternative,

and these small toy terriers fitted the bill.

And, of course, they have to be very small?

They had to be very small to go under the machines.

So people were deliberately selecting

what they needed for a very specific job?

Yes. A versatile little dog,

but they also found their way into a lot of grand homes as well,

because they had mice and rats and stuff.

So generations of small terrier breeds

have still got this ability to dispatch rats.

Go on, what's this?

This is Bella. She's actually Kate's dog. She's absolutely gorgeous.

She's a bit of a crossbreed but she's all terrier.

HE IMPERSONATES GROWL Good girl, get it! Oh, yes!

Good. Whoa! Fair do's.

The terriers have got this very distinctive behaviour

which is what we call worrying, which is kind of a...

It's bit of a euphemism for shaking the bejesus out of something.

So once they got hold of rats or small prey,

they'll dispatch it very quickly by this vigorous shaking.

And you can understand that she doesn't want to let go

to take another bite, and in fact she's refusing to do that

cos she knows if I've got hold of this, or if it was a live prey,

it would scamper off, so she does this classic... Oh, gosh!

..classic behaviour which takes enormous jaw and neck strength,

which in many cases will break the necks of small furry pests.

Let's head back to the Green family to find out

when these innate behaviours and senses start to emerge.

The litter of puppies are now four weeks old.

They no longer have to rely solely on touch and smell.

Two weeks ago, their eyes opened for the first time.

The pups' ear canals are also fully open,

so they now have acute hearing.

Almost fully weaned, the pups look for comfort from Jane.

This is when they start bonding with humans

and they're jostling for position with their siblings.

There's plenty of biting of skin and pulling of the ears

and growling goes on.

THEY GROWL

But they're just playing

and learning how to sort of talk to each other, I suppose.

They're very cute when they fight.

Have to come in and break it up sometimes.

The puppies can't see as well as adult dogs yet,

but eventually their eyes will have

a wider view of the world than we do.

Back in Brightwell, we want to investigate dog vision further.

We've come out into the orchard,

into what looks like a bit of a UFO landing site,

but we're here to test one of the dog's key senses - sight -

and try and find out how the different breeds see the world.

We're very lucky to have Dr Rick Sanchez

from the Royal Veterinary College, an eye specialist, there.

So what are we hoping to do here, Rick?

Well, this little contraption, this little test,

is hopefully going to aid us in determining

what the visual field of the dog is.

Right, OK.

So first and foremost, how does it compare to humans?

Well, we're about to see that cos we're going to test it on you.

Oh, good. Will it hurt?

I don't think so. Good. I don't think so.

So basically what we want to do

is we want you to stand here in the centre. Right, OK.

And looking forward.

So always look at the centre, just dead on. Right, OK. Yeah, yeah.

And these lines represent what the visual field would be, OK?

Right. OK. So if I come from behind you, from this side.

I can hear you. From your right... Yeah, yeah.

..I'm going to be waving a yellow, bright yellow ball. Right.

And when you see it for the first time I want you to say "there".

OK. OK, yeah. OK, here we go.

Oh, there we go. There it is? Just. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

OK, fantastic. So, there we go. That's pretty good.

That's a good start, isn't it? OK. That is a good start.

We've got our first contestant here that we're going to try this with.

How does the Labrador sort of compare to humans, do you think?

Well, it's difficult to say,

but if you look at a lab,

you'll see that the eyes are both pointing forward and head on,

very similar to that of a human.

So he's probably one of the closest examples that we have to a human.

There we go. So, what's his name?

Dexter? Good boy.

Go, Rick. Let's see what happens.

Oh! That's pretty good. That's pretty good isn't it?

That's very impressive indeed. It's wider than me, isn't it?

OK, Dexter, well done.

So he has got slightly wider vision and he loves that ball!

What we need to do now is try another breed.

So I think we've got a saluki.

Yes, very beautiful.

This is your classic sight hound,

this is a dog that has been bred for running and chasing down prey.

So with the long nose,

the idea here is, Rick, that it also has a slightly wider field of view?

That's right, because of where the eyes are positioned in the skull,

we believe that the field of view is fairly wide,

wider than that of a human, definitely.

OK. So this will be an interesting test.

Let's go, let's see. Right, let's see.

Oh. Was that a flick, do you think? Right around there. Very good.

Well, that would fit with your estimate here with, on the line.

There you go. So that's...that's quite a field of view.

Very impressive, isn't it? Yeah.

And actually yeah, when you stand here with,

with Leonard's head pointing up,

you can just start to see his eyeballs,

so if we can see his eyeball he should be able to see us.

He should be able to see us. Yeah. Yeah, theoretically.

Like gundogs, the brains of sight hounds are programmed to hunt,

but they do it in a very different way.

Salukis were selectively bred and honed by Bedouin nomads

over thousands of years to hunt in the searing heat of the desert.

The extreme temperatures force salukis to pant to keep cool,

and this panting compromises their ability to sniff.

Whereas most dogs hunt by scent,

salukis have to rely on their keen vision to pinpoint prey.

Their eyes have a long visual streak stretching right across the retina.

This allows them to spot a moving hare on the horizon

over half a mile away.

A more popular cousin of the saluki is the whippet.

Brady is, I suspect, a very typical whippet.

She's incredibly laid back unless there's a rabbit in sight,

or a squirrel, or something she can chase.

They're bred for hunting. They're sight hounds.

She's hopeless on scent or bouncy balls or anything like that

but if she saw something a quarter of a mile away,

we'd just lose her.

You see the whites of her eyes and she's gone.

If she goes after rabbits,

I can't really tell her off because that's what she should do.

So we've developed all kinds of dogs to work for us as hunters.

But ever since we first domesticated dogs,

they've had another important job - to guard us.

Well, here at the British Museum,

you only have to take one look at this magnificent beast

to understand why early humans looked to dogs for protection.

I mean, just look at the sheer musculature of it.

He's got this huge head and a big muzzle, and those jaws.

I mean, it is an intimidating beast.

This particular statue represents a Molossian,

which was a breed of the Greco-Roman period,

but you can see elements of the basic mastiff within him, can't you?

He could almost be a modern Rottweiler.

If you look at all sorts of civilisations

going back thousands of years,

you can find representations of these mastiff-style dogs.

It seems that we've always wanted a big dog for protection.

But there is one ancient breed that we have always used to guard us,

and it might not be the one you're thinking of.

Meet the Lhasa apso.

They're not a guard dog in the normal sense.

DOG YAPS

They're not guard dogs that are aggressive.

DOG GROWLS They have got extremely good hearing

and they hear anybody before you do, and they're always there first,

letting you know, basically, that there's intruders about.

High up on the Tibetan plateau, Lhasa apsos once played a vital role

as one of the guardians of the great Buddhist monasteries.

I've come to Bedfordshire to meet Nick Clancy of the Lhasa apso club.

Originally, they would have been part of a team

that include the Tibetan mastiffs, guarding the temples in Tibet

with the mastiffs outside, patrolling,

trying to physically stop any intruders,

and these little fellows would have been inside,

relying on their sharp hearing

to pick up any noises of people who may have got past.

They were very much on the inside.

They were not outside,

which is why they like to be cuddled and held and sleep with you.

So that when the dog starts barking, you know,

it's going to wake you up? Uh-uh.

Like when I've got the dog at the end of my bed

in the middle of the night and it's, "Woof, Mum!" And I'm like, "Shut up!"

THEY LAUGH So there you go.

A bark really can be worse than a bite.

Or at least as effective.

Today many of us keep these traditional guard dog breeds,

not for protection but as pets.

The Doberman is a classic example and there's one here in the village.

So Bob, what is it about Dobermans that make them excellent guard dogs?

The Doberman was bred from the Rottweiler and the greyhound

so it's got some of the strength of the Rottweiler,

and obviously the colouring, and the speed of the greyhound.

So it's a sort of an all-round working dog,

but it's also a pack animal and so it has a natural defensive instinct

to defend its pack.

And so when you raise it as a family dog,

it will see itself as part of the family and it would always have

this idea of being protective to its family, its pack.

So do you still see those behaviours around you and your family?

Yes, she does.

I mean, she will always position herself, in the house,

in the doorway of the room where you're in, guarding the entrance.

Guarding is a natural instinct for most dogs.

This is Dennis, he's a komondor.

And they're very devoted to their owners.

They would literally take a bullet for you, if the case...

you know, if the situation ever arose.

I know that if one of us was in trouble or attacked in any way,

I'm sure he'd absolutely go for whoever was attacking us.

DOG BARKS

Dennis, Dennis, Dennis, Dennis!

As we've discovered,

being a good guard dog isn't just about having an impressive physique.

It's also about having excellent hearing.

Dogs can hear danger approaching long before we can.

So how is it that dogs' hearing is so much better than ours?

Well, as it turns out,

it's because they can hear more than the normal human range of hearing,

way up into the really high pitched tones.

But surely the shape and size of the ear must make a difference?

Well, to try and find out, Bruce has got us a fine collection

of different shapes ears and sizes of dogs.

So, this is great, Bruce, actually,

cos you've got a real mixed bag, haven't you?

They're a great selection.

We've got erect ears, lopped ears, ear-muff ears. Yes, yeah.

I've got a sound to play to them

and we'll see if one responds faster than another.

So, we'll start real quiet first and then see? That's right.

And it's a cat sound so don't be surprised when you hear the sound.

Right, so if we get out of the way.

OK, Bruce. OK.

If the great Dane is willing to get off its back

and actually go to school! Yeah. OK, are you ready?

He's got his ears open, look! He's got his ears open!

There, OK, fine. And here we go. Low sound.

Nothing. Nobody?

Now louder.

FAINT MEOWING

Oh, look at the collie there, the collie's really locked on.

So, I'm just going to make it a bit louder this time. OK.

QUIET MEOWING

Flat coat. Oh, yeah. We've got some ear pricking up there.

And this little one turned.

Did you see the cavalier? Yeah, the cavalier turned her head.

Oh, did she? OK. And the great Dane is still in another world.

OK, they all came in pretty similar then, didn't they, really?

The reason the Border collie responded so quickly

is most likely because it's been bred to work

and to be alert to our signals.

You've been a bit of a cartoon today, haven't you?

Surprisingly, scientists have discovered that ear size and shape

don't actually affect how well different breeds hear.

Yes, you've been terrific. Yes, you have.

There are definitely times where your dog may choose not to hear,

and here's a clip of an absolute classic example.

'In 2011, a passer-by filmed an unruly Labrador

'ignoring his owner in London's Richmond Park.'

Fenton! Oh, Jesus Christ!

FENTON!

'The resulting video was a YouTube sensation,

'with over nine million hits.'

FENTON!

Thankfully, most dogs out there do listen to their owners,

and in fact there are some special dogs listening FOR their owners,

and that's thanks to Bruce and a charity you set up

quite some time ago, Hearing Dogs For Deaf People.

Yes, it was 30 years ago now.

So where did the inspiration for that come from? It was my father.

In the 1970s, when he was in his 70s,

and his hearing was disappearing,

I could see how he was pulling into himself,

how he was isolating himself,

and I'd see how people would react with him.

They'd think he was dumb because he'd try to pretend he could hear,

but he was hearing the wrong thing and would reply the wrong way.

And the other thing that I noticed

was that he never paid any attention to the dogs. They were for us.

But now when he sat down on the sofa he'd pat the sofa beside him

and have the dog hop up.

And it became obvious that dogs bring a type of affiliation

or attachment or love to a relationship

that's different to what we get from other humans.

And I could see this with my father

and I wondered whether it was possible to actually train dogs

to do something over and above that,

to tell my dad that a smoke alarm had gone off,

to tell him that there was somebody at the door,

to somehow make his life a little bit easier.

30 years on, the charity Hearing Dogs For Deaf People

has trained over 1,700 dogs to alert their deaf owners to everyday sounds.

There's one of these hearing dogs in the village.

Rory is five and-a-half years old

and he's been with us for nearly four years.

Most dogs can only work to five, six, seven sounds.

When Rory came to me I think he worked to nine sounds,

which is absolutely at the top of their thing.

For each sound, he comes up to me

and gives a really firm nudge with his nose.

He then leads me to whatever the sound is.

ALARM SOUNDS Rory hears the alarm clock

and he actually comes up to the bed and he jumps up on the bed

with his front paws and lands on my chest or my back.

And they don't let you go back to sleep either,

because once they've woken you up

that means they want to go out and Rory wants his breakfast and...

So there's no snooze button, and that's guaranteed to wake me up.

RORY BARKS Milo!

I know that Rory would wake me up if somebody broke in

or a smoke alarm went off or anything like that

and it's amazing to have that peace of mind.

Before I had Rory, one of the main things that I always used to miss

was couriers bringing parcels to the door

and I used to have to sit about here the whole day

so that I could see the door.

It took months before I really trusted Rory

to come and get me in every situation but I do now and,

you know, the freedom that comes from that is great.

Rory!

They love having the dog around, as I think all children do,

and I think it's great for them to have him

because he's a family pet as well as a working dog.

But they've learnt to be really good at respecting

his working boundaries as well.

It wouldn't work if they deliberately intercepted him

when he was on his way to take me somewhere.

Taking Rory away now would be

nearly as bad as taking away one of the children or my husband!

We are a family of five and he's one fifth of it.

So far we've been looking at dogs' senses and innate behaviours.

We've seen how, throughout history,

we've harnessed these amazing abilities to help us.

But there's another very important factor - intelligence.

Are some breeds simply smarter than others?

This is my pug. Tickety-boo is her official title

but we call her Betty.

Never underestimate a pug.

She's highly intelligent. Super intelligent.

She's just there on a slightly higher level.

And that may sound bonkers but it's true.

They're just slightly above all the other dogs.

Good boy. Good boy, well done. Well done.

We've certain expectations about certain dog breeds -

it's not worth training toy breeds or collies are very intelligent.

Well, we're going to put that to the test.

And who's this, here? Well, this is Dray.

We're having a look to see whether or not he will find

the sausage when I place it under one of these plastic cups. Right.

Dray. Dray.

So now the object's disappeared from sight,

does he realise where it is?

THEY LAUGH

Well, not first time necessarily. Oh, bless!

But we've got to be very careful when we talk about intelligence,

because actually what we're seeing here

is a dog's approach to a problem, and the dog's approach -

let's rely on what we know best, which is sense of smell.

Let's try one more, shall we, Dray?

Find it, find it. Yeah, there we go.

Good lad. Next, can we try another? Oh, Betty. Let's have a look at you.

Come on, Betty.

Now Jenny, is Betty smart? She's incredibly smart.

It's like asking people about their children!

"Oh, yes. Very, very advanced, very advanced."

Watch. Watch. Find it. Where is it, Betty? Where is it?

Where is it?

Come on, Betty! Where's the sausage?

Do we have anybody else who's up for a challenge?

Yeah, let's have a go with a Border collie, shall we? Right, OK.

Now this is the one breed everybody thinks of as one of the brightest.

It's commonly used in agility and flyball,

it obviously has a working role as well.

Beautiful Border collie. Come on then, Megan.

Come on puppy, here you go.

Sit, sit.

Stay, stay there.

Find it. Good girl!

Our simple tests give us some clues about dogs' aptitudes.

However at Vienna's University Of Veterinary Medicine,

ground-breaking studies are changing the way

we understand canine intelligence.

In his "clever dog lab" Professor Ludwig Huber

is using the latest technology

to work out just how bright dogs really are.

Come, Teddy. Come.

Good boy.

Today we are testing the idea

if dogs would understand visual concepts.

So here we have two sets of pictures,

each set containing 40 images.

In one set is pictures of dogs

and the other set we have pictures of landscapes,

and Teddy is supposed to choose the correct one

by touching with his nose this screen.

So if they do it correctly, they get food...

..if they do it falsely then, of course, they don't get food.

So what we are investigating here is the kind of perceptual cognition.

It's also kind of intelligence, because there are so many different

pictures and they have to find out what is the common feature in a set.

So in this case the common feature is a dog,

but the dog pictures actually are all different,

so they have to understand something

To know what is a dog is quite a complex concept for a dog.

Good.

This shows us that the dog can really form an abstract concept,

not only discriminate simple colours or forms.

The final test, this was the most challenging test.

Because here we tried to confuse them

with pictures of landscapes plus a dog,

so we mounted faces of dogs that they have never seen before

in the training on to a picture of a landscape.

So they were really tested if they can extract from the background

the concept of the dog, and if they understand

that what I have to choose is always the dog

then they should not mind the landscape behind

and choose to really focus on the dog.

And this is what they did. All of them did.

But this was really difficult, it was really difficult for them.

Back in Brightwell are we any closer to finding out who is top dog?

I know you shouldn't judge on looks alone,

but Saint Bernard, very bright?

Well... THEY LAUGH

Shall we let the test tell us? Yeah. There's a good girl.

'This is a very simple intelligence test.

'The smarter the dog, the quicker it will emerge from under the blanket.'

BOTH: Hooray!

So what sort of dog is Albert?

Albert is a Hungarian wire-hired vizsla,

not the brightest tool in the box. Prove, prove me wrong.

Are you ready? Oh, hang on.

Oh, oh, hang on a minute, mate. Hello?

Hello. Oh, hello?

ALL: Yey!

Well, actually, he's certainly not the slowest.

Good to hear!

Certainly not. So maybe, Albert, you're the incredible combination

of a sparkling personality and...

No, no, no, no, no! THEY LAUGH

'And last of all, it's the collie.'

Ready? Go.

Good boy! No messing! Well done.

2.56. Wow!

Very, very quick.

What's this?

'It seems that Border collies have the ultimate combination

'of acute senses, innate intelligence

'and the ability to follow instructions.'

Find it. Well done!

Through training, we've enhanced natural attributes to work for us.

There you go.

Good dog. Good girl, well done. Very bright.

Originating from the Scottish borders,

Border collies can be traced back to one dog, Old Hemp.

Instead of barking and nipping at sheep,

this dog fixed them with an intense stare,

intimidating the sheep into moving where he wanted them to go.

Come on Teg, good girl.

'Now my sheepdog Teg isn't from the Borders, she's the Welsh version,'

but does she have what it takes to become a working dog?

'She should have a natural instinct for herding,

'but how much can she learn in a day?'

Local shepherd Bronwyn Tango

and her Border collie Spot will show us how it should be done.

Their task is to get my sheep from one field to the next.

Come. GENTLE WHISTLE

Stay.

A-way. SHE SQUEAKS

Get away.

A-way!

She's gone away, round the back, along the hedge line.

That'll do, Spot. That will do!

That'll do.

It's amazing, I think, that the dog stays quite far back from the sheep,

but you can see that low-slung body movement, there she goes.

Close to the ground. It's like watching a cheetah stalk its prey,

but she's keeping back, she's not rushing them on.

Come by.

Get up, Spot.

Get up. SHE WHISTLES

SHEEP BLEAT

And they're through.

Huh, that was copybook!

Oh, dear. That was amazing.

Now Teg, keen as mustard.

Is that a good sign or a bad sign? Well, that's a very good sign.

It's great to see that it's natural in this particular dog,

and with, you know, some training,

she'll calm and hopefully make an excellent working dog.

'It's time for our first lesson.'

Teg. Teg! Come by.

Come by.

'First Teg needs to learn to go around the sheep

'in a controlled manner and stop when I tell her.

'This relies on her obeying voice commands.'

So you're giving her the command so that she knows that "come by",

she moves off to the left. Yeah, and "away" to the right.

Shall I give it a go and see? Yes.

Teggy, come. Come, come here. SHE WHISTLES

Teg. Away, away.

That'll do, Teg, that'll do.

Come by, come by, Teg. Come by.

Come by. Good girl.

She hasn't got direct contact with them now,

but even though through the gate,

she's actually controlling which way they're going.

Teg, away.

Away, Teg. Good girl, away.

That'll do. Teg! Come.

Good girl, that was very good!

Next Bronwen wants to see how Teg will interact

with the sheep without the pen.

Will she remember what she's learned?

Most importantly, to stop on command.

Do you want to come in? Yeah. Come on, Teg.

Wait. Wait.

WAIT!

Teg! SHE WHISTLES

Teg! No! Oh, dear.

Come away. Oh!

Teg! What she's doing is just basically rushing into the sheep.

That will do!

It's not a pretty sight.

Well, one thing that's clear is that she is definitely keen. Teg!

But...completely uncontrollable!

There is no discipline whatsoever.

Stand, stand.

Teg! Hey! Don't!

And she's just, she's just completely ignoring her.

When you see a beautifully trained dog like Spot,

it looks so simple and effortless and instinctive,

but actually to make that instinct work

I've really got my work cut out.

Teg! Teg! Teg, that'll do. Teg!

Teg. SHE WHISTLES

Teg!

Oh, Teg! That wasn't a very pretty display.

She is very proud of herself, aren't you, Teg?

You had a lovely time!

Teg still has a long way to go to turn that basic sheepdog instinct

from random chasing to controlled herding.

Only certain breeds are natural herders.

Ruth discovered one that was a complete surprise.

Away.

Nowadays we think of the common corgi as being...

well, a cut above other breeds.

Maybe it's because this particular breed has something of a regal air.

I wonder why?

The Royal connection began when George VI brought home a puppy

to his two daughters, the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.

That first dog's name was Dukey and it was love at first sight.

Since then the Royal Family have never been without a corgi.

But this Royal pet actually has very working-class roots

in the valleys of Wales.

The corgi is first mentioned in Britain

nearly 1,000 years ago in the Welsh law codes.

Every domestic animal was assigned a value and the corgi

was valued as highly as an ox,

and that's because they have an extraordinary ability

to herd cattle, and they're still out there doing it today,

though not in Wales.

This ranch is over 14,000 acres, eight miles long,

two-and-a-half miles wide.

We've got around 300 head of cattle right now.

Corgis are natural herders,

so I depend on them a lot to help me move cattle.

Corgis are heelers,

expertly nipping the heels of cattle to move them forwards.

They control livestock 50 times their weight using their agile,

low-slung bodies to avoid being kicked or trodden on.

Take 'em down. Take 'em down.

Highly intelligent, corgis excel in understanding and obeying commands.

A dog like Debbie that's not afraid,

the cow ends up losing, the little dog wins.

So there you are, your American cousins are working hard.

Over here, corgis as a breed are something of a social climber.

We've seen how we've adapted dogs' acute senses

and innate intelligence to suit our needs,

but to achieve this we've relied on a vital trait -

a willingness to be trained.

So, what are we tapping into when we successfully train a dog?

How does training work?

Well, training is not something that's unique to dogs.

You can train virtually all mammals using exactly the same techniques.

What's unusual about dogs is that we can use human contact as the reward.

And what is it that makes them trainable

to do an enormous range of things?

I think the range stems from the fundamental reward

of wanting to please people.

I mean, I don't know whether they really understand

what our emotions are like,

but they're certainly incredibly attentive

and will do almost anything to get our attention.

But I don't think we've reached the limits

of what we could train dogs to do.

And I'm sure that in the future, new uses for dogs will emerge.

MUSIC: "You Are My Sunshine" by Ray Charles

# The other night

# As I lay sleeping

# I dreamed I held you

# Held you in my arms... #

Good girl! There we go! Clever girl!

We like to teach dogs new tricks, but how far can we go?

It's time to buckle up

because Monty the giant schnauzer cross is taking you for a spin.

Good boy! A!

Monty understands that A is for accelerator

and his paw is firmly on the gas.

His driving lessons began seven weeks ago when a dog rescue charity

in New Zealand taught him and his canine buddies how to drive a car.

Good boy! They've practised the basics over and over again,

learning how to use the brakes,

change gears and control the steering wheel.

Good boy! Turn! Turn.

Good!

The charity wants to demonstrate just how intelligent dogs are

to help them find new homes.

But it may take more than a doggy treat

to get the keys back off Monty.

Not wanting our dogs to be outdone by their Kiwi cousins,

we've come up with our own challenge.

Earlier in the show, we told you

that we had set some of our village dogs the ultimate challenge,

to see if they could learn to do something which we think of

as a unique human pastime and skill - reading.

We attempted to teach our previously illiterate doggie students

to recognise a range of written words,

and to respond by performing the appropriate reaction.

So these are what we've given them, let's see how they get on.

First and foremost, here we go,

we have Megan with Vicky.

So let's see.

Big ask.

Meg.

Oh! Never mind, no GCSE for you Megan, I'm afraid.

So next we have Josephine with Poppy.

Right, take it away, let's see.

Poppy.

Poppy! Oh, that's such a shame! We were so close.

Right, our final contestant.

Please help us out here, Pete.

Hectic.

Oh! Brilliant! HE LAUGHS

That is astounding.

Right, OK. Will he, will he do the other one?

THEY LAUGH

He can read it upside down! Upside down!

He can read it upside down!

Go on.

Very, very good. THEY CLAP

That, that is spectacular.

That's absolutely brilliant.

Ah, Hectic.

Well, we have quizzed, tested and challenged our dogs,

putting each breed's innate abilities to the test.

And what we've discovered is that dogs are astonishingly adaptable

and quick-witted, and it's that,

together with their desire to bond with us,

that enables us to train them to do a remarkable range of things.

Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Next week on The Wonder Of Dogs,

we explore the amazing bond between dogs and humans.

We catch up with Jessie and her pups.

He's a lovely puppy and if he went I'd be so heartbroken.

And we'll find out if dogs can read our emotions

and even wrap us around their little paws.

To discover more about genetics

and the changing roles of dogs in our everyday lives, go to:

Follow the links to the Open University.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd