These Are the 10 Smartest Dog Breeds
Ever have the feeling that your dog is actually smarter than all the other pups? Forget dog mom bias - you might actually be right.
There's plenty of ways to test a pup's intelligence - psychologists and animal behaviorists have been looking for standardized tests for decades - because there are many different types of ways for man's best friend to be intelligent.
In this sense, dogs are a lot like humans. Maybe you're more book smart than street smart. Maybe you're a math whiz, but not so canny when it comes to reading comprehension. We're complex, we contain multitudes and we're not good at everything.
Which is why it would be unfair to test a pup on a collective curve - certain breeds excel in specific things. But thanks to psychologist Stanley Coren, who wrote "The Intelligence of Dogs" in the '90s, we have data on what he calls "working intelligence," which is a type of pup smarts.
Working intelligence encapsulates two main qualities: The time it takes for a dog to learn new commands and the pup's level of obedience. These are the dog breeds that scored highest in the working intelligence category:
Border collie
Poodle
German shepherd
Golden retriever
Doberman pinscher
Shetland sheepdog
Labrador retriever
Papillon
Rottweiler
Australian cattle dog
Honestly, that felt a bit like an Academy Awards introduction - which is appropriate, considering that this is pretty much the doggy Oscars. While the aforementioned 10 breeds are consistently faster to learn (they can learn a new command in less than 5 seconds) and more obedient (they obey 95% of the time), Coren did mention a loophole. There are exceptions in every breed, he said, and a lot comes down to proper training.
Coren's full list breaks down working intelligence by breed into tiers, so if you don't see your pup in the list here, chances are they fall somewhere in the gamut. If Fido's breed scores lower than makes sense, just remember the loophole. Because that time that he learned to roll over, play dead and go get the newspaper all in a row was seriously impressive - and no one can tell your pup how smart he is but you.
[h/t Business Insider]
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