(188) Smart Dog Intelligence Ranking

While talking to my father the other night he mentioned that he saw a report on AOL that stated there was now research ranking the smartness of different dog breeds. I say smartness instead of intelligence because whereas many breeds may be intelligent, only those who use their smarts or an outward expression of their intelligence are ranked. I didn’t read the article that my dad was talking about, but I did look up smart dogs and found a ranking system by a professor of psychology and Neuropsychology at the University of British Colombia. The Author, Dr. S. Coren, wrote a book called the Intelligence of Dogs, suggesting that there are three types of intelligence in dogs.


• Adaptive Intelligence (learning and problem-solving ability). This is specific to the individual animal and is measured by canine IQ tests.

• Instinctive Intelligence. This is specific to the individual animal and is measured by canine IQ tests.

• Working/Obedience Intelligence. This is breed dependent.

The Working/Obedience Intelligence is the ranked system that I wanted to view. There were six categories for dog breeds. Brightest Dogs, Excellent working dogs, Above Average working dogs, Average working /Obedience Intelligence , Fair working dogs /Obedience Intelligence, and Lowest degree of working dogs/ Obedience Intelligence.

Of course I wanted to know where Beeker and Max would fall. I also wanted to know where my favorite other dogs would fall. Keeping in mind that not all dogs are “working” dogs, I figured that Beeker (cattle dog mix) would be somewhere in the above average group and Maxie (Newfoundland) would be in the average range. I also kept in mind that we were talking about breed intelligence and not individual intelligence. I know Max and Beeker are extremely smart dogs (called parental pride). Turns out that Beeker’s breed (cattle dog) comes in at #10. So he is in the Brightest Dog group and Maxie’s breed (Newfoundland) comes in at a tie at # 34. Now the criteria that was used is that a Bright dog breed will understand new commands in less than 5 repetitions and will obey the new command 95% of the time. I think Beeker obeys them a little less than 95 % of the time. For above average breed they understand a new command in 15-25 repetitions and obey in 70% of the time. I think this is a fair claim on Maxie. You could say he stands for his breed. Belle our female Newfie was probably atypical and obeyed commands 95 % or better. The website that I looked at to read about this research and book was:

http://petrix.com/dogint/index.html

or

http://www.petmedsonline.org/top-10-smartest-dogs-in-the-world.html
You are able to see where most breeds fall. Its fun to see if your own dog matches up to its breed intelligence standard.

I also read on a simular site that a smart dog will learn everything you want it to know, but a super pet will also learn everything it can get away with. Just something for you to think about when you are working with your smart dog. I’d say Beeker fits into this category. He is always trying to find something and someone to “work” or to do a job on.