Here is an interesting article from Time Mag.
I haven't had time to read it all but it looks pretty good. There are also links to hit - one is on hunting dog field trails from a long time ago.
Read and enjoy

Tks, it is an interesting article!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1921614,00.html

A Ripon College student did a research study on this topic last year. She compared my obedience trained dogs with dogs from the pound and found that the pound dogs were even faster at finding a hidden item when it was pointed to. Of course, my dogs were just being polite! Nevertheless, her results agreed with the article, that the ability of dogs to realize what a human is doing when they point to something is innate in dogs.

And I swear that some of them can spell too!

Well, I'll be.....they can spell!

http://dogs.thefuntimesguide.com/2007/12/dog_spells_words.php