subject: What's the Truth about Dog Intelligence [print this page] What's the Truth about Dog Intelligence What's the Truth about Dog Intelligence
Ask any dog owner which dog is smartest and he's likely to tell you it's his dog. That's just the way dog lovers are. So you can imagine that when it comes to trying to make some objective observations about which dogs or breeds of dogs are most intelligent, it can be hard to find anyone who doesn't have a dog in the fight, so to speak. Still, there have been some brave souls who have tried to measure dog intelligence.
Dr. Stanley Coren wrote a very controversial book in the 1990s called The Intelligence of Dogs. He based his rankings of dog intelligence on the opinions of 200 professional dog obedience judges. The top ranked breeds were Border Collies, Poodles, German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers and Doberman Pinschers. At the bottom of the list were the Borzoi, the Chow Chow, the Bulldog, the Basenji and the Afghan Hound.
As you may imagine the book set off a firestorm of criticism, especially from people who owned dogs that were not at the top of the list. Was Dr. Coren trying to say that the dogs lower on the list were dumb? Well, no. Since the rankings were based on the insights of dog obedience trainers, the emphasis was on dogs that were easy to train and somewhat eager to please. An Afghan Hound may be very intelligent but he is often less interested in obedience training than his Border Collie counterpart.
In general, Hounds and other dogs that have been bred to think independently did not rank high on the list. This is probably due to the fact that their work as hunters in the field requires them to act on their own instead of stopping to take instructions. When a Hound is in full out pursuit of a rabbit he doesn't have much time to stop and find out what his master wants him to do. It doesn't mean they aren't intelligent.
Sporting breeds and Working dogs dogs which are usually eager to please and easy to train generally rank in the upper to middle range of the scale. Terriers, another set of dogs who like to work independently due to their history of going after prey on their own tended to rank lower in the rankings.
So much for Dr. Coren's attempt to rank the intelligence of dogs although you will often hear owners of some of the top-ranked breeds bragging about the intelligence of their dogs or referring to Dr. Coren's book.
There are similar problems with other ways of trying to measure canine intelligence. Different breeds and kinds of dogs have very different inherited behaviors and these can affect their reactions when you try to measure their intelligence. Dogs, as descendants of wolves, are pack animals. As such, they generally have the ability to work together to hunt prey. This is often a problem-solving situation and dogs have shown problem-solving skills when acting alone. However, it's not always easy to designs tests to measure problem solving ability.
Dogs have good memories and some testing suggests that they can have a very large vocabulary, even if they don't speak human language. Rico, a Border Collie in Germany, knows over 200 words, many of them the names for his toys. When introduced to a new toy for the first time he could often remember it when asked to find it a month later. He could also find a new toy based on deductive reasoning when asked to find a toy with a new word, he would ignore the toys he knew the names for and fetch the toy he hadn't seen before. A Border Collie named Betsy is said to know over 340 words and can match an object with a photo of the object, even when she hasn't seen either of them before.
Based on these tests, some researchers have theorized that dogs have an intelligence and style of learning similar to that of a 2-3 year-old human child.
Judging your own dog's intelligence isn't always easy. Some dogs learn faster than others. Even puppies in the same litter will learn at different rates. Even if you attend obedience classes with your dog, your dog may or may not do well depending on how motivated he is to learn, the methods and teaching style of the instructor, distractions in the class, how much you practice, and so on. And, as we've seen, some dogs simply like obedience lessons better than others because of their historic background.
You could have a very intelligent dog who learns things very quickly and he could still be bored by classes that emphasize too much repetition. In the case of such a dog, he could be inspired to learn more and enjoy classes more with a more creative approach.
Even at home your dog may be very smart but that doesn't mean he always does what you want him to do. In fact, intelligent dogs can get into a lot of trouble at times, especially if they are good at figuring things out for themselves. The smart dog who learns to open cabinets can over eat. Some dogs can figure out how to get objects that may be harmful to them. Some dogs learn to open doors or latches or even to open a gate. So, just because you have an intelligent dog doesn't mean that your dog won't get into trouble.
While it may seem that some breeds of dog are more intelligent than others, intelligence among dogs will also vary among individuals. Border Collies are often reputed to be among the smartest of dogs but not every Border Collie is at the top of the class. Even among breeds with a reputation for being hard to train or not as smart, there are individuals who can excel. If you want to work with your dog and do some training, don't be put off by the fact that some people tell you his breed or type isn't supposed to be very smart. There are exceptions to every rule. Few people knew that Collies were so smart before Lassie came along to prove that they could be trained to do anything.
