How
and Why Your Dog Loses Its Intelligence as it Grows Old?
It
will be an interesting news to know that the response and
intelligence level of a puppy is as good as any grown up dog
and this fact was established through as EEG specifically
recorded for the purpose.The specific EEG further has thrown
more light on the adult dog’s learning pattern and it
also established that the adult dog’s learning potential
is very similar to a 7 weeks old puppy. However, there are
other disputing findings when it comes to the learning abilities
of dogs.
It
is believed that puppies learn things by repetitive practice
very similar to the development of motor skills. Further the
learning abilities of a puppy is also similar to that of humans,
at least when it comes to the learning of new skills and you
can find many things in common between the dog and humans
when you look at he process of development of intelligence.
As
a human being, you keep growing in your intellectual strength
right from your infant stage till you reach your mid-adolescent
years. This process of intellectual growth is really fast
between 16 and 27 years, and the learning curve will be reaching
its peak level when you are in your late teens.
Once
you reach a certain stage in your age, your intelligence tends
to get crystallized and the so-called “crystallized intelligence”
is nothing but what you have learned thus far, which may not
peak until you reach an age of mid-40s.
However,
there are also few people who keep on increasing this crystallized
intelligence continuously throughout their entire life, but
the process will be slow and steady. And when it comes to
dogs, they follow this similar pattern of continuous intelligence
crystallization, but due to their small lifespan they die
before they could reach their peak levels.
Older
Dog and Its Brain Alchemy
You
can notice a visible change in your dog’s physiology
as it grows old, and this is because that your dog, after
reaching an age of 5 years, will start losing its brain weight
by at least 5 percent every year. For instance, your healthy
12-year-old German Shepherd may have a brain weighing only
70 percent of its brain weight when it was 5 years old and
this would possibly explain why dogs get lethargy on getting
old.
The
decrease in dog’s brain mass is mainly due to loss of
brain cells caused out of breaking down and shrinking and
in the process, your dog will start losing its many neural
connections thus making it slow in any response and this invariably
results in delayed reactions to external stimulus.
| 
