[GoldenRivet]

It amazes me what my dog has learned over the past couple of years. Dogs can be really very intelligent animals.

Aside from the normal "tricks" (Sit, Stay, Lay down, shake hands, high five, fetch, leave it etc) one "trick" that normally impresses people is the "leave it" trick, where you have the dog lay down then you place a piece of food, like steak for example onto his paw and tell him to "leave it." he will leave the food - largely ignored - on his paw until the command "yes" is given at which time he will eat the steak. in timed trials he will autonomously ignore the steak - waiting for the "yes" command for up to about 90 seconds before he assumes you have forgotten and he will eat it without being commanded to do so. (his sit and stay command on the other hand resulted in him sitting and staying in one spot for about 60 minutes)

Not so much tricks though...what i am really referring to is word association and certain concepts

Concepts like possessions - my dog actually knows what things belong to him and what things do not belong to him. His various balls, chew toys, his blanket, his cookie jar, his treat cabinet. These are all things that i am convinced that he understands as being "his belongings". He has his favorite toys and his least favorite toys... but when the toddler next door comes to visit and gets a hand on ANY toy, my dog will immediately take it and hide it somewhere as if to say "this is mine and you cant play with it." on the other hand, if the toddler brings a toy with him from his house - the dog will try to play with the child... but he will not take the toy and vanish with it or hide it. seemingly indicating that he knows the foreign toy is not "his"

additionally in the "possessions" category is his "Bed". In 2 rooms in the house we have designated areas as his "bed". From anywhere in the house we can say "Go to bed" or any variation of that such as "Get in your bed", "get your little but in the bed" etc and he will make a b-line for the closest of the two designated areas and lay there.

Which this is where the blanket comes into play. In any setting, in a tent, camper, someone elses house, outdoors etc... if we place his blanket on the floor and use the "go to bed" command while pointing at the blanket he will know after the first command that this is his newly designated area.

another of his possessions are his "bells" which hang from every door. Those Christmas type bells that hang from the door knob on every exit door of the house are distinctly "his". He rings them anytime he needs to go outside to use the bathroom. When you remove a bell, he takes great interest in what your doing with it as he knows that packing up the bells usually means going to stay at someone elses house. and, much like the bed, any door you hang the bell from - he immediately knows that this is his exit to the outdoors and will signal us any time he needs to exit the house. (we have been without indoor accidents since the dog was only a few months old due to this extensive bell training which i personally swear by)

Concepts like problem solving: German Shepherds are supposedly very keen on advanced problem solving. On one occasion we took his favorite toy and hid it under an overturned cardboard box inside of a kennel with the door closed and one of the two latches latched. within about 5 minutes he had opened the kennel door, overturned the box and retrieved his toy. on another occasion he was kenneled in the living room while we were with some guests. the kennel door had been shut but not latched. He bumped the door with his nose and it came wide open. We looked at him and he looked at us. he then grabbed the kennel door with his teeth and closed it back. we LOL'd at that one!

Word association: i cannot really know for sure exactly how many words my dog understands. I know that researchers have studied that dogs can learn up to 200+ words.

Though i doubt he knows that many, i can estimate that he understands perhaps 50-60 different words and their meanings judging solely by his reaction to specific words or phrases.

"Wanna go?" for example - even said without any emotional inflection gains an immediate reaction from him. He doesnt understand where we are going or why, but he understands that we are going somewhere for some reason and will occasionally go so far as to go and sit where his leash is hanging - even though we do not always "go" places that require his leash.

outside and potty are two words that more or less mean the same thing to my dog, he instantly understands that this means going into the back yard no matter which word we use.

also, "cookie" is a recent one he learned... this indicates that he will receive a treat from the cookie jar and he knows where to go.

There are those who say dogs are as intelligent - linguistically speaking -as a 2-3 year old human child... though i'll add this - i know my dog behaves 100 times better than most 10 year old children.

Dogs really are quite amazing.