Dogs as Smart as 2-year-old children

Summarized from article "Dogs as smart as 2 year old kids" by Jeanna Bryner published on Livescience.com Sat Aug 8, 2:05 pm ET. Read full original article

A recent study of interest by Stanley Coren, an expert in canine psychology and a Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia, proved that the average dog has a mental capacity similar to that of a 2-year-old child.

"We all want insight into how our furry companions think, and we want to understand the silly, quirky and apparently irrational behaviors [that] Lassie or Rover demonstrate," Coren said. "Their stunning flashes of brilliance and creativity are reminders that they may not be Einstein, but are sure closer to humans than we thought."

A language development test was used in which to base their findings, revealing on average that "dogs can learn 165 words (similar to a 2-year-old child), including signals and gestures, and dogs in the top 20 percent intelligence can learn 250 words."

Coren also collected data from 200 dog obedience judges to find out which dogs, comparatively speaking, were the smartest. The top dogs in order of their canine IQ were:

1.Border Collies
2.Poodles
3.German Shepherds
4.Golden Retrievers
5.Dobermans
6.Shetland Sheepdogs
7.Labrador Retrievers

"The dogs that are the brightest dogs in terms of school learning ability tend to be the dogs that are much more recently developed," Coren said. He also noted that it is exceedingly probable that we have been breeding dogs to elicit a greater response to human beings and human signals. This way we would have dogs of higher intelligence that were very likeable and human friendly.

A good word of caution from Coren though, " While a smart dog will figure out everything you want it to know, your super pet will also learn everything it can get away with"