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Comment by etempleton | Hacker News Reader

We tend to measure a dog's intelligence by obedience and trainability, but dogs like huskies and beagles do not follow that rule. There is a reason there are always beagles readily available for adoption.

My beagle growing up extremely smart--he knew every trick you can think of; he could remember specific objects by name; track someone's scent in an instant if you said find XXX; and seemed at times to understand whole sentences. Unfortunately, he also was stubborn, independent, and had an insatiable drive to follow scents.

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I've got a blue tick beagle (he's amazing: https://www.instagram.com/elvisrufflife), we recently had a friend up to our house in the woods and they had their dog run away from them on a walk the first morning they arrived. Over an hour later, i leashed up our beagle, started where their dog got lost by pointing at a few of her footprints and...away he went (on leash!). We followed a trail (that i could not see) for about an hour, i was convinced he was just tracking a deer or something unrelated. Eventually the trail lead to a road a few km away from the house where we met some other people walking their dog, i asked them if they had seen a black dog and they instantly responded with "Yes, we saw a dog 10 minutes ago".

I knew he was smart, but it's next level impressive what he can track. Our dog has had no formal training , i got him as a rescue when he was about 18 months old. He can do all the standard tricks, and apparently track things? I'm certain he knew what i wanted him to do, it was an odd form of communication but he seemed very excited with the assignment he was tasked with.

The kicker to this story is that our friends dog came back to our house all by itself about 5 hours later. We spotted it once during our hunt, but being a rescue street dog from Forida, she's pretty skittish and just ran away any time she was approach by another person.

Our goldendoodle sounds very similar to this. She's great at "go see XYZ" or "go get ABC", knows all the party tricks, and will play fetch endlessly without ever wandering off no matter how far I throw the ball.

If she ever happens to see a squirrel or a chipmunk however she'll try to rip the leash off of your arm; if she's ever off-leash and sees a critter like this you can throw the hours of trained recall out the window. Fortunately this has never happened near traffic or a cliff.

Same experience.

Our goldendoodle is fantastic. Our neighbors can't believe she just chills with us in the front yard without a leash. They can't let their dogo out of the house without a fence or leash. She only barks once in a blue moon and everyone in the house is on immediate high alert when she does. Generally, its salesperson walking up the front driveway. She doesn't bark at UPS/Fedex any longer... which is good this time of year.

I run her every other day a few miles and she is right with me, generally off leash. When she sees a lizard tho, its game over. I have to stop and physically pull her off the bush she is buried in to get the lizard. She is very food motivated and the word "treat" is spelled out in our house because she will not leave you alone until she gets something if she hears that word.

My only complaint is grooming. To do it properly, I've been told requires brushing her everyday. Not happening. I have tried to do it 3 times a week... it takes like two hours and is completely exhausting. We just get her shaved every two months or so.

I have a corgi/beagle mix, so she loves to smell and doesn't have to crane her neck as much as a standard beagle. She loves to smell everything, so areas where other dogs have been are slow to traverse. She is smart and seems to understand commands, it is just a coin flip of if she will listen (or just give me a quick mopey look)-- especially if there is an interesting smell they're locked on to.

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