How smart is your dog? Sure, he comes when you call; maybe he even sits, stays, and rolls over … sometimes. But can he do this?

ONE DAY WHEN MY MOTHER was coming over for a visit, I told my dog, “Hey Bear, RoRo’s coming over.” I was shocked when he went straight over to the door and sat down, waiting for her (or someone) to arrive. I thought it must have been a strange coincidence, but then later that day, as I told my husband the story, I said the same thing and he again went straight to the door and sat down. We now tell Bear in advance when anyone will be visiting and he always waits by the front door to greet them!
—GRETCHEN FROEHLICH
CINCINNATI, OHIO

MY SISTER-IN-LAW CAME OVER a couple of years ago with her little baby. I was setting up for a garage sale and the baby was getting fussy, so she decided to take him on a walk in his stroller. The baby was amused by our dog, Kirbie, so my sister-in-law asked if she could take him along. It seemed to start out fine, but a while later I see my sister-in-law coming up the street, huffing and puffing, the baby on her hip and Kirbie sitting in the stroller like he was king of the world. You’ve got to hand it to our dog; he’s no dummy.
—ALICE OLSON
STILLWATER, MINNESOTA

MY DOG’S NICKNAME IS PIGLET, for good reason; she knows how to get a treat. She once came up to me and barked to let me know she had to go outside, and when I let her out she did a fake squat, ran inside, and went to the treat cupboard! Yes, my dog tried to fake a pee for a treat!
—DEBBI SCHWARTZENFELD
BERKLEY, MICHIGAN

MAXI HAS A METAL BOWL. In the summer, I freeze water in it for him to lick. When the bowl is empty, he clicks on it with his nails. We can hear the “tap, tap, tap” all around the house. It is his way of saying, “I’m out of water here.”
—DIANA
THE BRONX, NEW YORK

SUNNY LEARNED TO HELP HERSELF to the refrigerator. She was once a stray and even though she has become part of a loving and secure home, she never passes up a free meal! She watched her mom and dad take good things to eat out of that big white box in the kitchen, so she learned to do it herself. However, she’s never learned to close the door when she was done or clean up the mess she made.
—DENISE FLECK
SHADOW HILLS, CALIFORNIA

My blue heeler, Poodnah, is one of the most intelligent dogs I’ve ever seen. She quickly learned many tricks: playing dead; catching a Frisbee; fetching television remotes on demand; climbing up ladders; getting her own biscuits out of the box when told to do so; and many others. Most of all, she loves her toys, which she can fetch on command by their names. One day I had a college friend over to watch a basketball game. I had my friend tell her to get her toys by name, and one by one she would bring them to him. I decided to cap off the show with a new trick I had taught her just the day before. I told him to ask the dog to get him a beer. As planned, Poodnah immediately went to the kitchen and, with the help of a dishtowel tied to the handle, opened the refrigerator. We could hear her moving the cans around, and then she came trotting back into the living room with a can of beer in her mouth. The trick was working perfectly. But instead of giving the can to my friend, she continued past his chair and went over to her dog bed and began chewing the sides of the can. Now tell me that isn’t the smartest dog—she knew the importance of a cold beer at game time!
—SHAWN CONNORS
CINCINNATI, OHIO

ANNIE WAS QUITE SMART and did some pretty amazing things. If we told her to go downstairs and wake up our son Brad, she would go down the steps and run straight into his room and jump on his bed. When she came up, we would tell her to go down and wake up our other son, Wes. She’d then go down the steps and take a left to go to Wes’s room. Sometimes she would come back up too quickly and we knew that she hadn’t jumped on his bed. Then we would ask her if she got Wes up and she would look a bit sheepish and we would tell her to go get Wes up again. She’d go downstairs, take a left, and not come
back up for awhile. I knew that she had completed her job and was up on Wes’s bed, staring at him and breathing on him to wake him up.
—CINDY SCHWIE
ROSEVILLE, MINNESOTA