Might as well be me. Since there have been a couple comments on here as of late about dogs not thinking, only reacting, I thought I would take it upon myself to post evidence to the contrary.
I am NOT saying by any means that dogs perceive feelings and thoughts the same way we do. What I am saying is the dog's brain is designed to think in it's own way. They are obviously not verbal creatures like humans are, and it is theorized that they think in images. The first study to that effect can be found here
Pet Animal Behavior: How Dogs Think
Dogs can solve problems. It would be logical that they could as it is a survival mechanism. They can also learn by observation, and have the concept of object permanence.
Here are more recent articles studying the thinking dog...
What Were They Thinking? More Than We Knew. - washingtonpost.com Dog Unto Others: Canines Have Sense of Fairness | Wired Science from Wired.com #1 - Dogs Instinctively Understand Humans « Why Dogs?
The last article may be more along the lines of dogs evolving to co-exist with humans, but it demonstrates their ability to learn to communicate with a different species. Too bad so many humans have trouble understanding their dogs.
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