Trope-a-Day: Dogs Are Dumb

Dogs Are Dumb: Averted – partly because it’s not universally true in non-fiction anyway, and partly because one thing that differentiates the Elieran bandal from the Earth dog is that, being in need of assistance in many areas due to the relatively small, relatively slowly growing population that tends to be the case among the very-long-lived, the Eldraeic breeding masters concentrated very hard on breeding for increased intelligence.  (And, key point, by which they meant the kind of intelligence that includes understanding and creative problem-solving, not just the ability to follow orders.  Basically, they wanted co-workers, not tools.)  Essentially, even the non-uplifted examples are appallingly clever, probably on a par with Dragon Age‘s mabari.

Also, uploading/reinstantiation technology works exactly as well on dogs as it does on anyone else, and you can just imagine how a lot of people, immortal as they were, felt about regularly losing their beloved pets/junior family members, so… well, there are more than a few very old dogs out there.  And they know all the tricks.

(And if you remember what we said back in Brain Uploading about the afterlife… all dogs around those parts really do go to Heaven.)