Luna, down.
You’re so smart!
A lot of pet owners think their doggos are smart
– very intelligent.
MENSA ready.
But how can we know for sure?
At different points in history, dogs have been the gatekeepers of the afterlife, fluffy
hunting companions, security guards and even family members.
They respond to our body language, like gesturing and pointing, they understand verbal commands
and sometimes, they can be deceptive – having a theory of mind (meaning they understand
that our thoughts and feelings may be different from theirs).
But canine intelligence hasn’t been carefully studied until recently.
Perhaps because “intelligence” is so hard to define.
In dogs intelligence has been broken down into three categories:
Instinctive: how well your dog does what they are bred to do, like herd sheep or retrieve
things.
Adaptive: This is how well your dog learns from their environment in order to solve puzzles,
like where you hide treats.
And working and obedience: Or, how well your pup does in obedience school and training.
And much like people, dogs have a range of intelligence.
When they’ve been compared on working and obedience, border collies, poodles, and german
shepherds are the top three breeds.
Way down at the bottom of the list were mastiffs and basset hounds.
They look kinda sad about it.
So we know there are “smarter breeds”, but researchers hadn’t tested intelligence
within breeds until last year.
British psychologists evaluated the adaptive intelligence of border collies, using three
pretty typical canine intelligence tests.
And we’re going to do a dramatic reenactment.
I just want Luna to be famous.
First is the detour test.
A simple course is set up that the dog must follow to earn a treat.
Once the dog is familiar with it, a “short detour” is set up in its path and they are
timed to determine how long it will take them to figure out a new route to the treat.
So, time your dog.
In the study I mentioned before, The “smartest” collie figured this test out in under 5 seconds
and the one who scored the lowest took around 2 minutes.
On average, the dogs took under 8 seconds to complete the test.
Next, the point-following test uses 2 inverted cups.
Using a treat that isn’t too smelly, show your dog, then obstruct everything.
Then, reveal the cups and point to the one without the treat.
If your dog followed your point without any distractions, give them a pat on the back.
Transition into a scratch.
Good dog.
Those border collies ranged from less than a second to 43 seconds to arrive at the indicated
cup, with an average time of less than 4.5 seconds.
Finally, the quantity discrimination test.
Fill two plates with different amounts of wet food.
Place these plates the same distance from your dog.
Let them go and time how long they take to make a decision.
Smarter pups will head for the bigger plate and quickly.
The border collie’s were pretty quick with this one, arriving at the larger plate in
under 3 seconds, on average.
The border collie who made the fastest decision did so in less than a second, and the slowest
took just over 38 seconds.
If your dog did well on the first test, you should notice they’ll do well on the other
two – this was found in the border collie study and it suggests that dogs have a general
intelligence factor – a general mental capacity that can influence how well do on tests and
in other activities.
We’ve found that mice and chimpanzees have a general intelligence factor, too.
Testing other animals can help us develop a complete theory of intelligence.
In particular, there’s a link between intelligence and health: higher intelligence leads to better
health outcomes.
And animals might be able to tell us if this happens through genetics or through environmental
factors.
Animals are more of a control group than people as their circumstances and environment remain
pretty constant, as opposed to humans who eat donuts when we’re stressed, smoke and
drink, and binge watch Netflix instead of getting 7-9 hours sleep.
And Luna would never get less than 9 hours sleep.