Can Dogs Really Do Math?
Math Dogs
Dave the Math Dog and his owner, Frank Ferris.
One of my favorite dogs is Dave the Math Dog. You may have seen him on TV. He’s been on Late Night with David Letterman with his owner, Frank Ferris. Dave (the dog) and Mr. Ferris live in Illinois, where they are in constant demand for demonstrations at schools, retirement homes, and other places where people like to watch dogs do math. Mr. Ferris usually holds up a dry-erase board with a math problem on it, and Dave will paw his owner’s hand the correct number of times for the answer. Dave can do some pretty big math problems, including square roots. It’s a great show!
According to Mr. Ferris:
My wife Debbie and I (Frank) are the proud parents of Dave the Math Dog. He was 5 yrs. old when my wife Deb found out Dave could count. She was watching the Discovery channel. A lady on the program told the audience that animals understand more than us humans think. She ask her dog how many fingers she had up and the dog barked. Deb ask Dave how many finger she was had up and Dave pawed the answer correctly. Deb tried around 6 more problems and the dog answered all problems correctly. We then showed him flash cards and he would scan them left to right and paw the answer. We started sharing him with local schools, nursing homes and churches. We now do most any gathering. Most of the program we use came from people asking questions. Mostly little kids and some adults. He can add, subtract, multiply, divide, square root, divide by square root and was taught the power of 0 by a high school math teacher in Oakland, IL. He also can solve some algebra equations and he understands some American Sign language. He has been taught some foreign language numbers. He has been taught Spanish, German, French and Korean numbers. Dave knows how old he is and what month and day he was born.
http://landofpuregold.wordpress.com/2006/11/28/dave-the-math-dog-making-the-rounds/
Dave demonstrates his math skills at a local school.
Dave also has his own web site with a list of his upcoming appearances: http://rrochat.com/davethemathdog/index.html
Believe it or not, Dave is not the only math dog in the world. A man in China claims that his 3-year-old white Pug mix named Wawa (“Baby”) can add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers up to 10. Wawa barks a number of times equal to the answer and sits when finished.
Mr. Pang, the owner, says he began tutoring Wawa in math two years ago after noticing that the pooch showed a “natural sensitivity” to numbers. He says he began with hand gestures, showing one finger and saying, “Wawa, this is one,” and training the dog to bark once. After a few weeks, Wawa graduated to 2, 3, 4 and so on. Within six months, the precocious pup had mastered 1-10 and began learning elementary math calculations, according to Mr. Pang.
(Full story at DogsInTheNews: http://dogsinthenews.com/stories/070427a.php)
Perhaps it’s not so odd that dogs should have some basic understanding of math. Wolves did require some kind of knowledge of numbers for hunting and keeping up with the members within a pack. Doesn’t a mother always know when one of her pups is missing? And, there’s a saying that if you think a dog can’t count, try holding three cookies and giving a dog two of them. You’ll find out pretty quickly that the dog knows you’re holding out on him.
From DogsInTheNews:
A farmer is wondering how many sheep he has in his field, so he asks his sheepdog to count them. The dog runs into the field, counts them and then runs back to the farmer.
“40,” says the dog.
“How can there be 40?” asks the farmer. “I only bought 38!”
“I know,” says the dog. “But I rounded them up.”
