It amuses me when people claim that, on the whole, a particular breed or type of dog is dumb, stubborn or untrainable. Fingers are typically pointed at bull breeds, sight and scent hounds, terriers, Nordic and primitive breeds.
The dogs listed above, well, they’re not necessarily bred to work for us. Some dogs are, these ones are not. They are bred to work for themselves, with us in the background cheering them on. This does not make them unintelligent, rather, it makes them full of brains and ideas of their own. Which in turn can make them a challenge to motivate to work with us. They have their own agendas.
The most intelligent dogs that I have worked with, and of course I come at this with a little bias, are terriers. They will die for you, as long as they can do it their way. I’ve also worked with people who have absolutely amazing scent hounds and have done wonders with convincing them to play along with training. I’ve owned a number of bulldogges and they are far from stupid, in fact, they are scarily intelligent and know how to manipulate those around them to get their way – they aren’t stubborn, they just know they don’t necessarily need to do it.
I’ve come across some amazing sight hounds and Nordic breeds that would surprise you at their levels of cunning and independent intelligence.
If you can convince these kinds of dogs that it was their idea to work with you in the first place, and understand their intrinsic motivations, they will work, and they will work hard. But you have to be ready to be outwitted, out smarted, out worked and outdone in order to make one of these dogs your partner in life. They are far from dumb, in fact, they are typically too smart for us to handle.
Smart Dogs Canine Training Milton 