No Dumb Blondes: Dog Fan Says Afghans Stunning, Not Stupid

Psychology professor and pet trainer Stanley Coren created a few growls of disapproval with an excerpt from his forthcoming book, “The Intelligence of Dogs,” that ranks dog breeds by their intelligence, based on obedience and working smarts.

At the top of the list was the border collie, poodle and German shepherd--ranked first, second and third, respectively. Dead last on the 133-dog list was the Afghan hound, which Coren called “a perfect fashion accessory.”

Sandy Weinraub of Canoga Park, an American Kennel Club-licensed Afghan judge and a dog breeder, defended her favorite kind of pet for Times staff writer Abigail Goldman. Her Afghans, Julia and Mandy, listened.

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Q: Are Afghans the dumbest dogs?

A: Are cats dumb? Cats are independent, cats are mysterious, cats are arrogant, but nobody ever refers to them as being stupid. An Afghan is all of those same adjectives. He’ll mind you if he feels like it; if he doesn’t, he’ll tell you to go to hell. They are very, very bright, but they are independent creatures. They don’t particularly want to obey you just because you want them to. How do they measure a dog’s intelligence? What, do they give them books to read? There is no way. Dogs instinctively will do things that they were bred to do. A golden retriever instinctively is a dog that will run into the water and bring back the game to the hunter. He knows how to do this; it’s instinct. Each group of dogs has a purpose. A terrier is a feisty little thing that was bred to flush rodents from holes and burrows and that’s what they do. A working dog or a herding dog herds the flocks, a hunting dog brings back the game. Afghans were bred to hunt wild game on their own with no one telling them what to do. The hunter followed them on foot or on horseback, but the dog had to make all the decisions about catching the pursued animal on its own. There’s no way of saying one is more intelligent than another because they do what is in their genes for centuries.

If you wanted a dog to go and fetch your slippers, this would not be a dog for you. But if you wanted a dog that was independent and arrogant and exotic, you’d want an Afghan.

Q: So how do you know they’re smart?

A: Because they’re very clever. By whose scale of points do they measure a dog’s intelligence? Is a dog intelligent because you say roll over and play dead and it does? Or is it intelligent because it figures things out for itself. My son had a golden retriever and if I threw a ball into the pool 250 times, that dog would jump into the pool, get the ball and bring it back to me if it were 110 degrees in the shade. The Afghan would look at you like, “What are you, nuts? It’s too hot I’ll go sit in the shade and be comfortable. Why should I do that?” The gentleman who wrote the article on dogs’ intelligence obviously prefers animals who are blindly obedient at any cost and equated this with intelligence. He probably also prefers his women in the kitchen cooking and cleaning and not questioning any of his decisions.

Q: Afghans were called a perfect fashion accessory. What do you think of that?

A: That’s partially true. They are the perfect fashion accessory.

Q: Give me an example of an Afghan’s intelligence.

A: I had a male Afghan years ago that was quite a big winning dog in the show ring. He was used for breeding by people from all over the country. When we breed females, we use a muzzle on them because I don’t want them biting the males. It’s just a leather muzzle. Well my male was a house dog. I had him in my family room one day and I happened to have the muzzle sitting in a cupboard. All of the sudden, I felt this paw coming up behind me and batting at me and I turned around and there he was sitting with this muzzle in his mouth. Like, “OK, bring on the girls, I’m ready.” Now, I don’t think that’s a stupid animal. The same animal would want to wake us up in the morning. He had this routine. First, he’d gnash his teeth at us, and we’d ignore him. And then he’d take his paw--Afghans are very much like cats, they love to use their paws--and he’d bat at us to wake us up. The third thing he would do was take our blankets in his mouth and pull them off of us. He figured that’s going to get them up, and it got us up every time.

Q: How would you measure smartness?

A: How clever they are on their own without having to be trained repeatedly. And Afghans are very independently intelligent. They have their own keen, wiley ways. I don’t train Julia to come here, but you call her and she comes to you. You call Mandy, she knows she’s Mandy, she’ll come right to you. My neighbor takes care of our dogs when we go out of town and we snood them--we put hats on their ears, the ones we’re showing so they don’t get dirty--when we feed them. She was taking care of the dogs one weekend and she forgot to snood one, and he grabbed the hat and stood there with it in his mouth like, “Hey, you forgot to do this. I’m not supposed to eat until I have this hat on.”

One of my dogs, when my kids were little, before we would go to bed at night (she slept in our room), she would go into each of the children’s bedrooms and check them before she’d go to bed. This was every night.

Q: Have you ever seen a dumb Afghan?

A: Have you ever seen a dumb person?

Q: How did you know it was dumb?

A: Well it’s not something I would necessarily look for, but I’m sure there are dumb anything, including humans. I think the man who wrote this book is an idiot.

Q: How would you know if an Afghan were dumb, then, because there’s no real way to tell?

A: I don’t know. I haven’t had any. If I had an Afghan that was constantly at my feet panting and trying to be so eager to please that I could tell it to do anything and it would do it, unrelentingly, I would say this is a pretty stupid dog.

Q: So you think golden retrievers are pretty dumb? Because you basically just described one.

A: I think they are the most wonderful, loving, obedient dogs. But I don’t think they’re necessarily innately intelligent. I think they are eager to please; there’s a difference.

Q: Can Afghans be trained?

A: Of course they can be trained. My son took one of my Afghans through obedience. The dog picked things up faster than any of the golden retrievers, any of the German shepherds, any of the dogs in the class. He learned it immediately. My son never worked with him from one week to the next like you’re supposed to. But the dog never forgot one thing that he’d learned the week before. However, I would never have let them take him off lead because if he’d have seen a cat running across the park, he’d have gone to chase it because that’s what he likes to do.

I offered my son an Afghan puppy and he said, “Why would I want a dog that thinks it’s better than I am?” That really sums up the breed. They are very independent, they are very arrogant, they are very eager to please themselves before they’re eager to please you. They like their creature comforts. Their favorite thing to do would be to sit at the end of the couch, looking very glamorous and looking down their nose at you.

Q: Will they chase a toy if you throw it?

A: They’ll chase it, but they may not bring it back. That’s no fun. You might do it again and it wouldn’t want to do it again.

(Weinraub throws a pink toy for Julia to chase. Julia looks the other way and Weinraub retrieves the toy.)

She’s smart enough to get out of a lot of work. All the movie stars are geniuses? They only have to be beautiful.

When this man’s book comes out, I’ll be sure the dogs have an opportunity to read it.