Ma’am, My Dog Did My Homework

The canine IQ test results are in: even the average dog has the mental abilities of a two-year-old child

The canine IQ test results are in: even the average dog has the mental abilities of a two-year-old child. The finding is based on a language development test, revealing average dogs can learn 165 words (similar to a two-year-old child), including signals and gestures, and dogs in the top 20 per cent in intelligence can learn 250 words. And the smartest? Border collies, poodles and German shepherds, in that order, says Stanley Coren, a canine expert and professor emeritus at University of British Columbia. Those breeds have been created recently, and may be smarter in part because we’ve trained and bred them to be so. The dogs at the top of the pack are on par with a 2.5-year-old. While dogs ranked with two-year-olds in language, they would trump a three- or four-year-old in basic arithmetic. In terms of social smarts, dogs fare even better. “The social life of dogs is much more complex, more like human teenagers, interested in who is moving up in the pack and who is sleeping with whom and that sort of thing,” said Coren.