Dog Smarts: the Tricky Issue of Defining Dog Intelligence

Our understanding of dog intelligence has come along way and certainly immense comprehensive strides have been made since the days of Rene Descartes (the renowned French philosopher, scientist and mathematician) who pioneered the school of thought that proposed animals were nothing more than biological machines!

According to Descartes, observed animal behavior amounted to nothing more than a reflex response to external stimuli, much in the same way as when a bare-footed person steps on a sharp object such as a thumb tack when they immediately withdraw the affected foot without any apparent conscious decision.

Descartes' views on animal intelligence, or more accurately put, lack thereof, not only denied the existence of intelligence in animals they propounded that animals were not self-aware and thus were incapable of emotional range or being able to consciously register pain. Being an extremely influential person of his time Descartes' opinions went a long way in justifying undue cruelty to animals be it through experimentation or otherwise.

However thankfully those barbaric days are long behind us and today it is the rare individual who still believes that animals are incapable of thought or emotions. That said though, there's still a ways to go before we can accurately qualify and quantify animal intelligence. Ironically this is perhaps so for the simple reason that since we measure the intelligence of different species against that of ourselves we are inherently practicing anthropomorphism (attributing human qualities and characteristics to non-human subjects, be they animals or inanimate objects), because we innately identify and attribute higher value to those behaviors that somehow mimic ours or make some form of sense to us.

The Anthropomorphism Factor

The inherent flaw in this approach is that it overlooks the reason why the various species of animal behave the way they do; namely that their brains are connected and wired in a pattern best designed to perpetuate the success of that species within its designated environmental niche; a niche which is invariably very different to that occupied by people.

This is not to say that humans are not smarter than any other (as far as we know) animal on earth, but it just means that we have to concede the fact that when we measure the intelligence of other species against our own, by necessity anthropomorphism is going to be a factor. Perhaps this is no more evident than in the assessment of dog intelligence, most specifically, the difference of intelligence in the various dog breeds.

Perhaps the most cited authority on dog intelligence is the excellent book by Stanley Coren (click Here). In Dr. Coren's book which is based on his observations and research Coren asserts that there are three kinds of intelligence displayed by dogs which include the following: adaptive intelligence (the ability to solve problems); instinctive intelligence (characteristics and behaviorisms that are genetically driven); and lastly working / obedience intelligence which refers to the ability to obey and carry out instructions.

With particular emphasis on obedience intelligence, Coren came up with a list describing the most intelligent dog breed first, running down to the least intelligent dog breed, based on the observations of some 200 dog obedience judges and trainers.

However Dr. Coren's study has generated a number of vocal criticisms of which perhaps the most pertinent object to the sample size of the study as well as to the subjectivity of its approach. Many claim that 200 is far too small a number to result in meaningful conclusions and that furthermore any conclusions were inherently biased because they were based on the subjective observations of the various dog trainers.

According to the study, the dog that topped the list as the smartest canine was the Border Collie and the dog that was bottom of the list was the Afghan Hound. Much as Coren rightfully points out that the measure of intelligence is not limited to any one factor, one however, cannot but help get the impression that more value was attributed to a dog's ability to carry out instructions (obedience/ working intelligence) than was accorded to the other parameters of intelligence.

Comparative studies and experiments have revealed that dogs exhibit surprisingly poor problem-solving abilities compared to their wild counterparts (wolves, coyotes, jackals, dingos etc). Research conducted on wolves illustrated that they generally learn through observation in contrast to dogs that learn through repetition. Such cognitive insightfulness appears to be inherent in the wild forms of canid which may explain why tamed individuals of those wild canids are notorious for escaping their pens and kennels!

Though great progress has been made in understanding dog intelligence evidently there is still much to be learned and much we still don't know.

Dog Breeds