It is a strange moment when they start doing something of their own volition that indicates higher intelligence. Recently, my GSD-Black Lab mix found a slice of pizza in our back yard, and brought it to our back door to wait for us.

I saw her sitting there with it in her mouth and said aloud "The fuck is that?" to my wife as I got up from the couch, and opened the door to get it from her. She trot past me before I could grab her by the collar to take it, went straight to the trash can in the kitchen, and dropped the slice right at the foot of it. I'd never seen anything like that from a dog, it was honestly kind of incredible. Never trained her to do anything like that, and she must've pieced together by her own reasoning and observation that "Old food goes in the all gone box."