What do you think of this test?

Found this while I was looking for a ranking of dog intelligence by breed. I would try it but it says the dog needs to be at least a year old and Sophie's only 6 mos. There are more parts to the test, you have to look at the bottom of the page and click to go to the next parts.


http://www.seefido.com/html/test_dog_s_intelligence_test.htm

I don't agree with this test. It's more of a test of how much a dog relies on routine. If I rearrange the furniture, my dogs will be indifferent because I do it all the time, not because they are not intelligent. Same with the first one- if I gesture to leave, they always get up unless I tell them they are staying home. A dog who doesn't get up is just in a routine, doesn't mean he's not intelligent. It's actually smarter if he doesn't get up if he's always had a routine. Why should he expect to go out at 3 when he forever has only gone out at 6?

I don't agree with this test. :D I think there are other ways of testing a dog's comprehension and problem solving skills that don't involve any tests around breaking routine.

Good point Prin, I never would have thought of it that way.

junk. There are many similar but more involvedand valid tests done to test the "intelligence" of dogs. But, WHO CARES what they measure. That's just keeping score. Measure your dog by how it enriches your life, helps you in your work or hobby, gives you peace of mind..... That's what counts, only you can be the judge, and nothing can measure it.

Defining "intelligence" in dogs is a very daunting task particularily if it does not take into account all dimensions of intelligence and weight them according to breed.

There are essentially three dimensions to be considered:

1. Instinctive - which is what the dog was bred to do
2. Adaptive - which involves problem solving and the ability to learn
3. Working & obedience - which is trainability i.e 'book smarts'

If you take your typical terrier, they would rank quite high on the instinctive, moderate to high on adaptive, and low on the book smarts, relatively speaking.

A border collie would rank quite high on all thee dimension.

In the top 20 book smarts dogs, 18 are either herding, retrieving, and guarding breeds, 1 terrier (min. schnauzer), and 1 toy (papillion). In the bottom 20, 12 are hounds. But, send a hound out to find a rabbit and your only worry will be keeping up.

I went to a seminar by Stanley Coren. He told us a story of training a Cairn terrier for competition obedience (he did it more to understand how the breed responded to training rather than having dreams of training a champion). At the end of the season he had the highest rated Cairn in Canada with a total of 39 points. By comparison, the top ranked dog in Canada was a border collie who had over 1600 points. He said that when he did a send away command his terrier would go out, see a fly, decide that chasing the fly was far more fun than coming back when called.

If you want a dog that you can drop on the ground (no training) to roam around close to your farm and keep all the varmints down and foxes away from the chicken coop get a good Scottie. It will never need instruction. It will be extremely intelligent

Get the same Scottie and ask it to heel off leash and come to you whenever you want or a beagle to retrieve a duck in a swamp and you have an extremely stupid dog.

It is not valid to compare breeds against each other regarding intelligence.

Nor is a physical comparison. A deerhound is "faster" than a beagle when they are chasing a deer. A beagle is "faster" than a deerhound when chasing a rabbit

That's why you have to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each breed.

For me, the main thing my doggies need is the ability to cope. I'm still relatively young and while my doggies will always have a place in my life, that life will probably change dramatically in the next 10 years. My doggies have no routine, except the routine of no routine. :p They manage really well, and I have taught them so many words for the sole purpose of being able to explain to them what is going on. They understand more than I give them credit for. :)

I guess the true measure of a dog's intelligence is whether or not you've figured him out.

No, I don't care where my dog ranks in so called "intelligence". I was just curious what breeds were considered to be more or less intelligent, not for any real purpose other than just curiosity. I noticed that beagles were near the bottom of the chart and I don't agree with that. I think they are maybe more stubborn than some other breeds, but not dumb.

I just saw that test and was thinking that if a dog is trained, he might not respond to some of the things in the test because he's not supposed to. Like the tests using candy. Sophie has never had candy and doesn't try to eat stuff that we eat because she knows she's not getting any. So I'm not real sure she'd go for the piece of candy, not because she's dumb, but just because she doesn't see the point if she can't eat it. Does that make sense?

It really bugs me when people say that beagles (or any dog breed) is dumb. Every breed has been designed for a specific task. Breeds that were designed to work closely with humans, like the working and retrieving breeds, learn very quickly and respond almost instantly. People believe these dogs to be highly intelligent. I believe that every breed is intelligent in its own right.

To me, a dog is intelligent when it is great at problem solving not how fast it picks up a command. Some dogs are more stubborn than others and resist more, not because they are dumb or not intelligent, they are just stubborn.

I think my beagle is extremely smart. She is able to figure things out on her own. She has fooled us many times. For example, while we are eating she will go to the back door and scratch on the door asking to go out, so one of us will get up to open the door for her. She will wait until the person is at the door, she will then quickly turn around and run straight for the plate that was left unattended!

She picked that up on her own. She was also extremely easy to train. She learned all her commands quickly, having her do them all the time is another story. She prefers to play and chase new and exciting scents. Not because she is dumb and forgets her commands, but because that is what beagles are bred to do, follow a scent and hunt.

I don't believe one breed to be smarter than another, just that they have been designed differently for different purposes.

Beaglemom, I agree. Sophie is a beagle and she learns commands really quickly, but doesn't always follow them because she has a mind of her own. That doesn't make her dumb. And she also knows when she's doing something she's not supposed to because she looks around to see if anyone's watching. I guess there probably ARE dumb beagles, just like there are dumb people, but mine isn't one of them.

No, no, that's stubborn, not dumb. Dumb is when a dog just can't figure anything out. It just looks at you with a puzzled look for EVERYTHING.

Jemma is instinct smart. She's hard to train, but she makes links with past experiences really well. Like if a new dog comes in the park and I take away the toy, she grumbles and crabs at the new dog. I know she realizes that the toy is gone because he came in. Boo is smart because he spends his days trying to be human. He is great at figuring out what makes people laugh. Like sitting his hiney on park benches. People laugh so much and he purposely sits next to new people all the time. I think he likes the laughter. I love it when my dogs tilt their heads around when I'm reading them a story. Makes me feel like they're trying to understand it.

But like I said before. A smart dog will stump its owner. :)

Prin, it's unfortunate but I have heard many people say that beagles and other hounds are dumb. They equate trainability with intelligence and that is not the case. I've had arguments with people when they say this. Many people think basset hounds are dumb and lazy. Trainability is one thing and intelligence is something else, although you do need intelligence to learn. You can have a dog that is highly trainable and then that is it. It can't think on its own but will obey your every command. Then you have the dogs who, like you say, "stump their owners". I agree, these are the smart ones!

Dahlia, Misty does that. She knows what she is doing is wrong sometimes, but she does it anyway! Misty graduated top in her obedience class. She learned very quickly but is extremely stubborn. A beagle trait! But I love her independence and her spunk. You will find that Sophie will soon try to outsmart you if she hasn't already. When she really wants something, she will figure a way to get it. Beagles are much smarter than they are given credit for.

Any dog with a real personality has to be smart too, right? I mean if there's nothing going on "up there", they won't express anything either. And in my somewhat limited experience with beagles, they have a LOT of personality.

Prin, I definitely agree!

This is my dad's take on beagles: He says they are not as easy to train because they're smart enough to know that you will still love them even if they don't always do what you say. I think he may be on to something. Some dogs are so eager to please but beagles figure out how to get what they want and use their charm to get you to forget all about what they didn't do right.

That is how I feel about the JRTs I have owned and the one I currently own. They are highly intelligent, and they have a strong mind of their own. When Roxy doesn't listen it is not because she doesn't know better. She just chooses what she wants to do sometimes not what I want her to do.

I have read a lot of Stanley Coren material and I plan on doing the test he lays out in his "The Intelligence of Dogs" book (when Dodger passes that year old mark).

I think that Coren takes almost everything into consideration when trying to "measure" a dog's intelligence. Like another posted mentioned, he has sections of instinctive intelligence, adaptive intelligence and working/obedience intelligence - but he also deals with linguistic intelligence and varieties of dog intelligence (which of course includes a look at which breeds do better a what, depending on what their original purpose/use was for)...

I think that trying to measure a dog's intelligence is certainly possible (to some extent) with Coren's test. But I agree that there are some gaps - for instance some rescue dogs might be deemed "less intelligent/adaptive (whatever!)" because of certain phobia(s) that are irreversible after being mistreated/abused etc... I really think that for most dogs to perform well on an intelligence test, they need to have been raised from puppyhood, in a loving, interactive, social environment. BUT - you can never underestimate the importance the owner makes (ie: A dog is only as smart as its owner).

With regards to hounds: I think that hounds continue to rank quite low on the whole intelligence scheme because most people don't expect too much from a hound (other than they expect it to run away or ignore commands or slobber when drinking from their bowl). When I got Dodger, it was my first experience raising and training a puppy alone, so I was not "brainwashed" as to what limitations his breed (Foxhound) has/had. Because I expected my hound to be obedient, Dodger gave it to me. However, had I really researched hounds and realized how unlikely they are to ever become reliably obedient, I would probably have adopted Dodger out to someone!

I like intelligence tests so long as people understand that the results are not a final judgement on their dog's potential!

Melissa