Passage 1
It was no accident that nineteenth-century naturalist Charles Darwin strove to connect the mentality and emotionality of people with that of dogs, rather than doves or horses. Neither his theory of evolution nor any general understanding of biology demanded that he preferentially underlines our similarity to dogs over other species.
But politically and emotionally, the choice was inevitable for an English gentleman who had set himself the task of making the idea of evolutionary continuity palatable. Darwin wrote that "dogs possess something very similar to a conscience. They certainly possess some power of self-command. Dogs have long been accepted as the very type of fidelity and obedience."
Darwin was not alone in his beliefs that dogs possess human virtues. The characteristics of loyalty and obedience, coupled with an expressive face and body, can account for why dogs are such popular and valued pets in many cultures. Depending on the breed and the individual, dogs can be noble, charming, affectionate, and reliable.
But while all dog owners should rightly appreciate these and other endearing traits in their pets, nothing says that the cleverness of a highly intelligent primate such as a chimpanzee is part of the package. Scientists generally believe the reasoning abilities of chimps to be considerably greater than that of dogs. But many people nonetheless believe that dogs are smarter than chimps precisely because of our familiarity and emotional ties with the dogs that we love.
We apply the same secret rules to our fellow humans. People in your in-group are those who are similar to you, either because they belong to the same organizations as you, or enjoy the same activities, or, because they are simply around more often. Dogs, because of their proximity to their owners, are definitely in. The intensity of our relationship with dogs causes us, quite naturally, to imbue them with high-level mental abilities, whether they have earned those extra intelligence points or not. We like them, so we think well of them.
Passage 2
Every dog trainer that I know had the same childhood, a childhood filled with the brilliant, heroic dogs of literature. We read about dogs who regularly traveled thousands of miles to be reunited with owners who somehow misplaced them, repeatedly saved people from certain death, and continually exhibited a better grasp of strategic problem-solving. In the preface to one of his many dog stories, S. P. Meek a bit shamefacedly remarked that in writing of dogs "I endeavored to hold these heroes down to the level of canine intelligence, and to make them, above all, believable. If at times I seem to have made them show super canine intelligence, it is because my enthusiasm has run away with me." We forgave him, of course.
It was something of a shock, therefore, to discover how the learning theory "experts" believed dogs think and learn. I was told that dogs, unlike chimpan- zees, have no real reasoning ability. Dogs don't think: rather, they learn to avoid the unpleasant (negative reinforcement), seek the pleasant (positive reinforcement), or some combination of the two.
Yet as a dog trainer, I find myself siding more with the Meeks than I do with the learning theorists. Dogs do think and reason. Granted, a dog might not be able to run a maze as quickly as a chimp. But a dog outshines any other animal that I know in the ability to work willingly and to communicate with a human being.
Researchers have increasingly come to view intelligence as a complex collection of mental abilities that cannot be fully captured in any simple way. Dogs are geniuses at being useful, and it is this usefulness that we admire when we praise their intelligence. As Jonica Newby, a specialist in animal-human interaction, writes, "In some ways intelligence is a matter of matching behavior to environment.
Unlike the author of Passage 1, the author of Passage 2 develops an argument by relying on ....