Smart dog awarded Harvard diploma!

Diploma from Harvard's Canine Cognition Lab

Imagine that!  I completed Sophomore Year in the Class of 2010 in less than two hours!  How many of you can say that? Here’s my Certificate in Recognition of Canine Achievement to prove it. I must say, it wasn’t too difficult for a smart dog like myself to just breeze through the program.

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Well, today was the big day.  My person and I were all excited about going to Harvard Square to the Harvard Canine Cognition Lab so they could observe me being smart and making decisions and stuff like that.  Neither of us could figure out ahead of time what would happen when we got there, but we hoped that I wouldn’t flunk out of the program.  After all, it is Harvard!  And me being just a mutt and all in the middle of all those Ivy League types.  Well, I’m here to tell you that it was fun.  And I think I did very well although nobody lets on about anything.  You know the “research posture” and all.

We were greeted in the parking lot of the William James Hall where the Psychology Department (for people) is housed.

The young lady who would do my intitial testing gave us a parking permit and led us upstairs to the lab. Nothing fancy. Just a bunch of rooms.  On the way to the room we would begin in (we were tested in 3 different spaces) we passed a glass door and on the other side was an opulent and beautiful black and white speckled Newfoundland lounging and wearing a tiara on her head. Yeah, you read that right. A tiara.  Me being a mutt of no special pedigree, I’m not usually decked out in tiaras and stuff.  But there she was in all her splendor, Lucy (Dr. Hauser’s dog– He’s head of the Lab).  I guess life isn’t fair. Some dogs get tiaras and some don’t.

So, we finally arrived in a room with strange set ups like lines of tape marking off areas of the floor, a chair, a big white mysterious screen, a spy camera and no air conditioning. Tough on a furry creature like yours truly on a warm late June day.  Then the testing began. The nice lady who was leading this test (after instructions, of course) got down on her knees and I caught sight and whiff of a morsel of dog treat which she dangled while ringing a bell and calling my name. She did a little ritual dance and hid the treat somewhere and then gave my person a signal to release me from my leash. The game was for me to find the food.  So of course I made a beeline for the food. What dog with any sense wouldn’t? This went on a couple of times and most of the time I guessed where she hid the food and got the treat. Smart dog!

Then the hocus pocus started.  Remember the big white mysterious screen?  Turns out the Wizard of Oz lives behind the screen. Because all of a sudden the screen lights up with this fake person doing the same little ritual as the nice lady and hiding fake food behind fake objects.   I know they wanted me to go find the fake food, but really I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in that.  Did they really think I would fall for that? I wasn’t born yesterday after all. That was the end of phase 1.

Then we went to a bigger room– more lines of tape on the floor and a funny piece of see-through stuff in the middle of 2 chairs–at opposite corners of the room.  On the way to this room we passed a yummy bunch of treats but I didn’t get any.  Not yet, anyway.

So Marcia sat on one chair and held me with a long leash.  And then who should trot in? None other than the tiara dog, Lucy.  She sat in the opposite corner with another nice lady.  We faced each other.  Then the nice lady who was leading the test did this little dance where she called our names and made sure we could see she was putting a morsel of food on 2 plates that were separated by that piece of glass.   Then at the signal, we were both released the length of the leash– just long enough to reach the plate– and Lucy and I got to eat our treats. This happened many, many times and I got lots of treats.  Not sure what the point was, but I liked the treats and got right into that game.

Then came part 3.  The nice lady said it was a test about  fairness.  This is how it worked:  the nice lady did her little dance and showed the treat and how she put it on the plate, only thing was she only put the treat on Lucy’s plate!  None for Roxie!  Now this defies dog logic. They were measuring fairness by being totally unfair to me! The first couple of times I fell for it and went to the plate looking for my treat, hoping against hope.  Then, eventually, I stopped bothering to go.  Lucy gets all the treats. Roxie none.  Lucy gets a tiara. Roxie none. Just kept thinking to myself “Life is Unfair.”

There was one more test, but it didn’t make any sense to me so I won’t bore you with it.  Then the nice lady led us to yet another room where she awarded me my diploma.  And asked if I would like to come back for round 2.  Of course we will.  Anything for the sake of knowledge.  I only hope that I get to hear about what they learned from all this.

On the way out, we passed Lucy again. This time she was gnawing on her tiara. So maybe life isn’t so unfair after all. Lucy, none. Roxie, none.