An Interesting Animal Experiment

[David Sklansky]

I thought I posted this already but I can't find it. So forgive me if this is a repeat.

I think it would be interesting to know whether any animals could be taught to mimic another animal of their species on cammand. In other words take one dog, cat, pig, parrot, dolphin, seal, ape, elephant or whatever and teach them the standard commands of sit, roll over, lie down, play dead etc. The second animal would not be taught these commands but would only be taught to obey the command "mimic". When both animals would be brought together you would tell the first one to do something and then you would command the second to mimic.

Possibly this has already been done or tried. In any case I believe its success or failure could prove at least as much as the mirror experiment (that presently only great apes and elephants pass.)

[nineinchal]

Would they curse and call each other human when they took a bad beat?

[drunkencowboy]

I thought I posted this already but I can't find it. So forgive me if this is a repeat.

I think it would be interesting to know whether any animals could be taught to mimic another animal of their species on cammand. In other words take one dog, cat, pig, parrot, dolphin, seal, ape, elephant or whatever and teach them the standard commands of sit, roll over, lie down, play dead etc. The second animal would not be taught these commands but would only be taught to obey the command "mimic". When both animals would be brought together you would tell the first one to do something and then you would command the second to mimic.

Possibly this has already been done or tried. In any case I believe its success or failure could prove at least as much as the mirror experiment (that presently only great apes and elephants pass.)

[drunkencowboy]

After reading the original post, my master told me "mimic" and so I typed the same post.

[drunkencowboy]

Actually - I have achieved this with my 2 black labrador retrievers Jake and Sammy. I dont use the word "mimic" though. I normally start off with "Watch Sammy! Watch Sammy!" and then switch to "Cmon Jake, Do it! Do it, Jake! and he will do his best to mimic Sammy...

The way I taught them this was by first teaching them the same set of tricks (just to make sure they could both mentally handle them) - these are things like roll over, shake, etc... Then I would command one to do a trick and attempt to get the other to do the same trick without actually being commanded by the tricks name. It took about 3 years with my two labs. Im not sure if other animals could do it and i probably would not know how to teach them...

[drunkencowboy]

oh - if i didnt make it clear - now they will attempt to mimic the other dog WITHOUT knowing the "trick" (not always a trick) ahead of time...

[ALawPoker]

I think, at least in the case of dogs, the animal would have to know the command to be able to mimic the other dog. You could probably get a dog to associate "mimic" with "do the last command." And I guess maybe it's possible the dog could hear a new command (like "jump") and start to figure out what it means by seeing the other dog do it. But his thought process would have to be "OK, mimic means jump, and jump means this." The dog will never truly associate "mimic" with "do what the other dog is doing."

Suppose dog A knew the sit command. Even in an ideal scenario, if you say "sit" and dog B actually knows that command to mean jump (and accordingly, he jumps), there is no chance dog A jumps when you say "mimic." The best you could hope for is that "mimic" tells him he should sit down. At least, I'm pretty sure of it.

I don't have any credentials in dog training or animal psychology. But I do own a dog and have a decent interest in the subject. Plus I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

[mjkidd]

David -- You posted this in the SMP forum.