Can dogs have learning difficulties?

As the title asks...is it in your opinion possible.

I don't mean strong willed/ defiant either I mean like humans that struggle to understand/have learning difficulties

Yes! I own one!

I always thought that he was a bit slow and different and I have trained enough dogs to know the difference and to know that there seems to be some kind of a gap in his ability to retain things. I always said that if I put the amounty of time I put into him into another dog I would have an amazing dog----and I have proved that with Etta!

I know he has short term memory problems, I know that maybe his brain can't cope with herding Champa and then being expected to do anything else.

His heelwork both sides is good, stays are good, positions are good if he has a body language signal as well as a word. Scent work he loves---he can find the apple with my scent on from among the windfalls.

Sometimes he forgets that he is playing with a toy when we are out, when we were at a friends (the one who I blame for me getting him!) he kept forgetting he had seen the sheep that was with us---every five mins or so he did a double take and rushed up to it barking.

Every evening he barks at his reflexion in my bedroom window. He has forgotton how to recall since we don't practice it any more---I give him a lot of leeway because of his paw.

On the plus side he loves everyone and all dogs and is really cuddly.

I have known dogs so traumatised and damaged generally that they have lost the ability to allow themselves to learn---but that is different I think.

rune

I don't see why it couldn't happen. However I have heard many people say that dogs raised with old-fashioned harsher methods can struggle with kinder methods, e.g. a dog raised with a stern voice and physical prompts like smacks etc. can often find it harder to get the hang of things taught with positive reinforcement, especially freeshaping for example. Casper definately seems to respond better to things taught by luring than freeshaping. I joke that he's a dumb dog but I think he just doesn't respond to the same training methods as Kiki (who has always had positive reinforcement from at least 9 months old, if not younger)

I`m sure they exist. Bran was pretty challenged. He was willing - but he really struggled to learn. Part was his history and breeding, but I think some was his own special self.

I dont see why not
I did wonder if Mia was autistic when I first got her because she seemed so like my friends brother
now she has calmed down a lot she seems a lot less like that - but I am sure it is possible

We had a dog growing up that the vet concluded was mentally deficient. Just didn't seem to be capable of grasping much at all from what I gather (I was just a baby at the time).

I know a GSD who was doing very well with his training until he had fitting clusters at 18 months.

He is now about 7 years old and doesn't retain information or learning and he seems to be in a stressy "bubble" of his own when out whereby he doesn't connect with people, nor take on information.

A canine epilepsy expert I spoke to said that anecdotally he wasn't surprised to hear it although he was unaware of any formal research on it.

I understand if children have fits before learning is embedded, and these fits also affect certain specific areas of the brain, it has been know to similarly affect their ability to retain learning.

Any time you fit for over 3 mins you are losing brain cells, your brain is being deprived of oxygen.

Many children I taught became more and more unable to function. The mother of one child who was unable to talk or do much else had a tape of him talking.

Very very sad.

rune

I had a brain damaged dog who was very slow to learn and didn't retain much of what she had learned.

Bless her, she was more than willing to try, but so confused by it all.

Thank you Thank you for all your replies.

Tess (I am sure you guessed which one I was on about ) fits the bill of a dog with learning difficulties, like Rune's dog she struggles to retain things she has learnt. Her problem being 'short term memory loss' you can train her something and within 20 mins she has forgotten everything, training takes basic one word syllables as this seems to be the one thing she can retain...ie you can not say ''find the ball'' it has to be ''find'' otherwise she becomes confused and runs about like a headless chicken
Toys are the same a ball is just simply ''ball' not ''fetch the ball'' or ''fetch your teddy'' its simply ''teddy''
Krlyr...you make a valid point which I have been questioning and am looking into, I have a strong feeling that Tess was hit many times for getting things wrong, and this has hindered her learning, she behaves like a child that has been abused and when required to do something acts almost too afraid to do it incase she gets it wrong and gets smacked.
When we first had her some 18 months back she lacked real confidence in the house and tried to get out in the garden where she seemed to feel safer. Now-a-days she lives indoors and copes with it well but struggles with finding which door leads to certain rooms...not that any doors have been moved
Often I can hear myself saying ''Tess this way baby'' without that reassurance she will go the opposite way.
The other thing we were very aware off were voices, she responded to signals not voices....can a dog be born and spend its first 18 weeks with no-one speaking to it...I feel she did.
I have hoped that as time goes on she would become easier to train in things like games, agility, flyball, but she really forgets what she did yesterday.......... thanks for your help, I am going to study this in more depth