Next time some guy at the dog park starts bragging that his beagle is brighter than your black Lab, here’s what you can tell him: You’re wrong.
At least in the book-smart sense of “bright.”
Some dog breeds are better learners than others, and Labs are among the best. They’ve been bred for intelligence and willingness, and the ability to be hardworking partners to their people.
But judging the smarts of dogs is complicated because not all breeds are designed to do the same things.
“We have been building dogs systematically to be more attentive to humans and take direction,” says Stanley Coren, who polled dog-obedience judges to rank canine smarts for his book, “The Intelligence of Dogs.”
Breeds like poodles and pinschers have turned out well. They get new commands in five or fewer tries and perform them 95 percent of the time. At the other end of the scale, dogs like basenjis and chows may take 100 tries to learn a command.
But bright dogs can be too bright, and being in the basement in the brains department doesn’t necessarily mean your canine is a bad companion.
And in truth, not every human needs the smartest pooch in the pack.
A brainiac dog left home alone for eight or 10 hours a day may eat the sofa to alleviate its boredom. Silly sweet bulldogs, No. 77 out of 79, may take eight hours to figure out you’re gone. “By the time you get back, you’ve got a sweet dog waiting to say hi, and life goes on in a nice, mellow fashion,” Coren says.
“You have to make the decision: Am I getting this animal because I need an active, bright working companion? Or do I just want contact comfort on those days when the boss yells at me?”
How to make an Afghan hound chuckle: Say “fetch”
Don’t be using the f-word around Joann Alford’s house, south of Bennett, where she has raised Afghan hounds for 20 years.
“Fetch, did you say? Oh,” she says, taking a short, audible breath. “That’s a swear word. They’re not retrievers.”
Nor are the graceful and unbelievably quick sight hounds particularly interested in coming when called. “They don’t want to be bothered,” she says. “They will do things on their own terms.”
Afghans rank dead last on the scale of working and obedience intelligence. But then, all of the sight hounds tend to turn up their elegant snouts at the notion of bow-wowing to human commands.
“The borzoi, Saluki and greyhounds, none of them respond like the eager little breeds that want to run and chase the ball,” Alford says. “Their personalities are much more like cats: They allow you to live in the house.”
Want hard evidence? “All you need to do is look at the statistics in the American Kennel Club summaries for the year for the number of Afghans and borzois who finish their obedience titles,” she says. “It’s zip to none. They just are not interested in that type of activity.”
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Over the years, Alford and her husband have learned to work around their Afghans’ aloof personalities. They’ve come to understand that though their dogs’ book smarts aren’t high, their heavily fringed hounds probably are smarter than they’re given credit for.
“They don’t like to play with you, but as far as being intelligent, they can learn to open locks in doors and get into things you would not believe,” Alford says.
Historically, Afghans were bred to get a visual bead on prey and run like the wind to catch it. Anecdotally, they were trained to sneak into sheiks’ tents and carry off jewelry.
“They steal. They hide. They open doors. There isn’t a cupboard in the house that is safe,” she says. “They are a challenge for their owners.”
At the same time, though, Alford virtually coos about how sweet and snuggly her Afghan companions are. They carry around squeeky chew toys and mother stuffed animals when they aren’t laying on the couch. They like to take long walks, although they must always stay on their leads.
“If they see a rabbit 2 miles away, they are gone. A person cannot chase them down. And they’re not real prone to coming,” she says with a little chuckle. “They just have minds of their own.”
– Dana Coffield
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It takes these breeds 80 to 100 repetitions to learn a new command. They obey the new command 25 percent of the time or less.
Borzoi
Chow chow
Bulldog
Basenji
Afghan hound
The fun and challenge of dogdom’s genius breed
Border collie owners can slap stickers reading “My border collie is smarter than your honor student” on their cars and know they contain at least some element of truth.
They can count on their canine companions to get a new command down pat within five tries, because the border collie, bred to be a sheepherder’s most valuable tool, is off the charts in terms of working and obedience intelligence.
Owners also can come home to find that the family pet has transformed itself into a panting au pair in a fuzzy black- and-white uniform.
“They’ll herd your kids into the corner,” says Colleen Rippeth, president of Rocky Mountain Border Collie Rescue. “Sometimes, a border collie is too much dog for people.”
Rippeth speaks from experience. Lest he get bored at home and spiral into a pattern of curiosity-driven destruction, her 7-year-old border collie Micah works as a greeter at Hometown Blues Florist in Lafayette.
Another of her pack, Tink, 4, can’t bear when Rippeth snoozes on the couch, so she drops balls and toys on the bosses’ head until she wakes up.
Both of them have to be locked away when Rippeth runs the vacuum. Otherwise, they chase her around the house, nipping at her heels. “It’s another herding thing,” she says.
Border collies are a thrilling, yet challenging, combination of brains and beauty.
“An intelligent dog knows it has the option not to listen to you, and that’s why people get into trouble with border collies,” Rippeth says.
She found her first, Irene, wandering skinny and scared, near a gas station outside Rawlins, Wyo., 12 years ago. Like everyone who fell in love with Fly and Rex in the movie “Babe,” Rippeth found herself thinking: “This is the cutest black-and-white dog I’ve ever seen!”
Little did she know. Behind those sweet amber eyes and twitching bat ears lurked a brain moving 10 steps ahead of her own.
“When you go to the sheepdog trials, you’ll see a handler spouting commands. Sometimes the dog will turn and seem to say, ‘Is that what you’re sure you want to do?’ It’s kind of funny, unless you’re trying to get them to listen to you and they don’t want to,” she says.
Border collies aren’t born with all the bells and whistles, Rippeth says. They need consistent training, and often some kind of work to keep them from behaving like bad dogs.
And unlike some other brilliant breeds, border collies don’t typically mellow with age. That darling ball of puppy fuzz can still be a handful at 12.
“Border collies end up in so much trouble,” Rippeth says. “They’re a misunderstood beast.”
– Dana Coffield
These breeds can learn new commands after five or fewer repetitions and will obey that new command 95 percent of the time or better:
Border collie
Poodle
German shepherd
Golden retriever
Doberman pinscher
