The Smartest Dogs?

Well, guess what, there's this guy who thinks he's really clever because he has a PhD, and he made a list of a 110 dog breeds in order of how smart they are.  This man's name is Stanley Coren, and he put this list in a book called The Intelligence of Dogs.

The way he figured out how smart these dogs are was that he had a bunch of people who usually judge dog obedience trials give the dogs scores according to how good they were at learning commands and then following the commands.

This border collie can't think of anything to do
until somebody gives him a command.

So the dogs who are supposedly "smart" are good at doing whatever a human wants them to do, but is that what it really means to be "smart"?  In my opinion, it takes lots more intelligence to think up things to do all by yourself, without someone giving you commands.  And the smartest dogs of all are probably the ones who can figure out how to get away with doing stuff their human doesn't want them to do, such as stealing food off the counter or opening the refrigerator door or unlatching the gate.

But I don't have a fancy PhD in neuropsychology, so what do I know?

Anyway, now I will tell you the whole list of dogs, from smartest to dumbest, according to Dr. Coren.  The top 10 dogs are the "brightest" because they learned a new command in fewer than 5 repetitions.  Then they obeyed the command at least 95% of the time.

This poodle is smart enough to find
the best napping place in the house!

  1.  Border Collie
  2.  Poodle
  3.  German Shepherd
  4.  Golden Retriever
  5.  Doberman
  6.  Sheltie
  7.  Labrador Retriever
  8.  Papillon
  9.  Rottweiler
10. Australian Cattle Dog

      

      Dogs ranked 11 to 26 are "excellent working dogs" who understand a new command with 5 to 15 repetitions and then obey at least 85% of the time.

Four "excellent working" keeshonds

         11. Pembroke Welsh Corgi

         12. Miniature Schnauzer

         13. English Springer
             Spaniel

         14. Belgian Tervuren

         15. Schipperke,
             Belgian Sheepdog

         16. Collie, Keeshond

         17. German Shorthaired
             Pointer

         18. Flat-Coated Retriever,
            English Cocker
              Spaniel,
            Standard Schnauzer

         19. Brittany

         20. Cocker Spaniel

         21. Weimaraner

         22. Belgian Malinois,
              Bernese Mountain Dog

         23. Pomeranian

         24. Irish Water Spaniel

         25. Vizsla

       26. Cardigan Welsh Corgi

These next dogs are "average working dogs."  They learn a new command after 15 to 25 repetitions, then they obey 70% of the time or better.

Sadly, this puli only gets
an average grade for intelligence.

         27.  Chesapeake Bay
                Retriever, Puli,
               Yorkshire Terrier

         28.  Giant Schnauzer

         29.  Airedale,
               Bouvier des Flandres

         30.  Border Terrier, Briard

         31.  Welsh Springer Spaniel

         32.  Manchester Terrier

         33.  Samoyed

         34.  Field Spaniel,
               Newfoundland,
               Australian Terrier,
               American
                Staffordshire Terrier, 

                Gordon Setter, Collie

         35.  Cairn Terrier,
               Kerry Blue Terrier,
               Irish Setter

         36.  Norwegian Elkhound

         37.  Affenpinscher, Silky Terrier,
                Miniature Pinscher, English Setter,
                Pharaoh Hound, Clumber  Spaniel

         38.  Norwich Terrier

         39.  Dalmatian

Dogs number 40 to 54 are of "average working/obedience intelligence."  It takes 25 to 40 repetitions of a new command for them to learn it, and then they obey at least 50% of the time.

Why are smooth fox terriers
smarter than wire fox terriers?

         40.  Wheaten Terrier, Bedlington Terrier,
                Smooth Fox Terrier

         41.  Curly-Coated Retriever,
                Irish Wolfhound

         42.  Kuvasz, Australian Sheepdog

         43.  Saluki, Finnish Spitz, Pointer

         44.  Cavalier King Charles Spaniel,
                German Wirehaired Pointer,
                Black-and-Tan Coonhound, 

                American Water Spaniel

         45.  Siberian Husky, Bichon Frise,
                English Toy Spaniel

         46.  Tibetan Spaniel,
                 English Foxhound,
                Otterhound, Greyhound,
                American Foxhound, 

                Wirehaired Pointing Griffon

         47.  West Highland Terrier, Scottish Deerhound

         48.  Boxer, Great Dane

         49.  Dachshund, Staffordshire Bull Terrier

         50.  Alaskan Malamute

         51.  Whippet, Chinese Sharpei, Wire Fox Terrier

         52.  Rhodesian Ridgeback

         53.  Ibizan Hound, Welsh Terrier, Irish Terrier

         54.  Boston Terrier, Akita

The next group have "fair working/obedience intelligence" and only learn a new command after 40 to 80 repetitions.  Then they obey the command about 30% of the time.

The Old English Sheepdog is only fair
at learning to herd the same sheep
a border collie herds so brilliantly.

         55.  Skye Terrier

         56.  Norfolk Terrier,
                Sealyham Terrier

         57.  Pug

         58.  French Bulldog

         59.  Brussels Griffon,
                Maltese

         60.  Italian Greyhound

         61.  Chinese Crested

         62.  Dandie Dinmont,
                Petit Basset
                Griffon Vendeen,
                Tibetan Terrier,
                Japanese Chin,
                Lakeland Terrier

         63.  Old English
                  Sheepdog

         64.  Great Pyrenees

         65.  Scottish Terrier, Saint Bernard

         66.  Bull Terrier

         67.  Chihuahua

         68.  Lhasa Apso

         69.  Bullmastiff

       

And now we come to the really dumb dogs, at least according to Dr. Coren.  These dogs have the "lowest degree of working/obedience intelligence," need to hear a new command 80 to 100 times before they learn it, and then only obey it 25% of the time or worse.  And look which breed is listed as the next-to-the dumbest breed:  BASENJIS!  Only Afghan hounds are supposedly more stupid about obeying commands.

Does this dog look like the stupidest
dog of all?  No way!

         70.  Shih Tzu

         71.  Basset Hound

         72.  Mastiff, Beagle

         73.  Pekingese

         74.  Bloodhound

         75.  Borzoi

         76.  Chow Chow

         77.  Bulldog

         78.  Basenji

         79.  Afghan Hound

Okay, so like I said before, I think it shows much more intelligence for a dog to be able to solve problems such as finding a way to get to the yummy snacks in the cat box than it does for a dog to learn a bunch of dumb commands.  A lot of the dogs who rank lower on the intelligence list are terriers and sighthounds, which are dogs that are actually quite smart when it comes to hunting, because they can run their prey down or dig it out of the ground.  They don't have to wait for a human to shoot a duck or pheasant and then bring it back to the human and hand it over without a second thought, like a retriever would.

Run, sheep, run!

Some of the comments I read about this list of smart dogs said that it can actually be a problem to have a smart dog such as a border collie in your family.  And this is because dogs like border collies have been bred to herd sheep or do some kind of work like that, and if they don't have anything to do, they get bored.  And if they get bored, they start chewing up everything in your house.  These same people who wrote the comments said that if you had a bulldog, for instance, instead of a border collie, the bulldog would just be happy to sleep all day and would hardly know that you were gone.

But I don't think this has much to do with intelligence, at least not the way Dr. Coren defines it.  I think it has a lot more to do with how much energy a dog has.  Because terriers and basenjis can tear up everything in your house while you are gone, just like border collies can, and it doesn't have anything to do with whether they are "smart" or "dumb."

Well, I guess that's all I have to say on this annoying topic.  I just can't believe that anybody could think a basenji was the next-to-the-most-stupid type of dog.  It may be true that basenjis are harder to train than some other kinds of dogs, but it's not because we're dumb -- it's because we are smart enough to see that there is no point in doing certain silly tricks!