"Dogs are more skillful than great apes at a number of tasks in which they must read human communicative signals indicating the location of hidden food. In this study, we found that wolves who were raised by humans do not show these same skills, whereas domestic dog puppies only a few weeks old, even those that have had little human contact, do show these skills. These findings suggest that during the process of domestication, dogs have been selected for a set of social-cognitive abilities that enable them to communicate with humans in unique ways."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/298/5598/1634
The domestic dog has been selected over thousands of years to be a great pet. Cats are perhaps a different matter, but due to their small size "misunderstandings" are less problematic than they would be with a Great Dane.
This would lead us to believe that the bigger the domestic dog, the more well behaved it is likely to be. I think this is likely true in my limited experience with dogs; those "yappy dogs" are the most annoying thing on earth.
