Blame Paula Moekel.

She owned an Airedale Terrier named, “Rolf” whom she’d gotten from a local animal shelter in 1911.  Rolf became famous around the world for his ability to “speak” by tapping out letters with his paws, but his talents first revealed themselves during a arithmetic homework session with her daughter. When her daughter failed to correctly answer the sum of two plus two, Frau Moekel told the child that even the dog could do it, at which point Rolf strolled up to Moekel and struck her hand four times with his paw.

It was just the beginning. Moekel let Rolf develop his own alphabet. He learned words, grammar, and was said to form sentences. Word of the amazing dog reached psychologist, Dr. William McKenzie,” one of the first scientists to investigate Rolf. Rolf obliged by correctly identifying shapes, and answering trick questions. Another scientist who studied Rolf, Profession H.E. Ziegler of the “new animal psychology movement” was convinced of Rolf’s superior intellect.

According to Paula, “Rolf” was an astute philosopher, poet, theologian and epic mathematician. He had a full life, sired ten puppies from “Jela,” another Airdale purchased to be his “wife,” and told stories from his early life that were published posthumously after his death from doubled pneumonia in 1919.

We might raise an eyebrow these days at the actual veracity of these claims, but what is irrefutable is that it was because of Rolf that the Nazis attempted to train an army of super-smart talking dogs. Seriously. Rolf, and other dogs like him who were said to possess such talents, influenced German thinking on animal intelligence

Hitler had a special dog school set up in the 1930s called the Hundesprechschule Asra to teach dogs to talk with the hope that they would work alongside the SS and guard concentration camps to free up officers. The school continued throughout the war years and came to light after painstaking research by academic, Dr Jan Bondeson (the same Dr. Bondeson referenced in a post about early Newfoundland colors).

Needless to say, nothing came of it, though we’ll never discount the uncanny intelligence of Airedale Terriers. Just saying.

Photo from Fortean Times