HOW SMART ARE THE TOY BREEDS? JUST JUDY’S THOUGHTS
by Judy Thompson
Q uestion: How does one measure the intelligence of any dog breed? Answer: With great difficulty. Clearly, we cannot adminis- ter the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale to make a determination. If we employed the scientific method, we would need a control group consist- ing of a good number of dogs from each breed—at least ten. We’d use both males and females. Currently, the AKC recognizes over 200 breeds, so that would calculate to 2,000 dogs needed to be purchased for the study. They would all need to be pup- pies of the same age, all living in the same environment, eating the same food, receiving the same training and social interaction. We’d need an immense kennel facil- ity, food, veterinary care, and a large number of kennel help and research- ers.We’d need to put each dog through the exact same hours of training and cognition tests. Clearly, this would be a huge, expensive, and lengthy under- taking. It is not surprising, then, that such a study has never been done and such data does not exist. Stanley Coren, author of The Intel- ligence of Dogs , is a professor of psy- chology and a dog trainer. He wanted to devise an alternate method of gath- ering data on the intelligence of dif- ferent breeds of dogs. He first relied on records derived from obedience trials. He obtained the records from nearly 2,000 trials and 125,000 en- tries during the trial year.
(photo by Chris Caviness Photography)
If we follow the premise that breeds winning the most obedience titles had the best working and obedience intelligence, then the Golden Re- triever would be rated as the most intelligent breed. But there were 670,000 living, registered Goldens in the test year. A rare breed could never match that total, even if ev- ery single dog won a title. You would also have to take into account the percentage of dogs of each breed
competing in trials and somehow determine if owners had more moti- vation to train certain breeds more than others. Personally, I would find it more imperative to take my dog for obedience training if it were a large dog bred to guard and protect, than if it were a small Toy bred to sit on a vel- vet pillow and look pretty. Determin- ing breed intelligence by the number of obedience titles earned simply lacks credibility.
20 • T op N otch T oys , M ay 2022
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