Dog Intelligence Is Not ‘Exceptional,’ Study Finds

A Monday study from the University of Exeter contradicts the popular notion that dogs are far cleverer than other animals, and concludes that their cognition “does not look exceptional” when it comes to sensory cognition, physical cognition, spatial cognition, social cognition, and self-awareness. The researchers reviewed more than 300 papers on the intelligence of dogs and other species, and concluded that man’s best friend is no better than some members of similar species. “During our work it seemed to us that many studies in dog cognition research set out to ‘prove’ how clever dogs are,” one of the researchers told Science Daily. “They are often compared to chimpanzees and whenever dogs ‘win,’ this gets added to their reputation as something exceptional. Yet in each and every case we found other valid comparison species that do at least as well as dogs do in those tasks.” Another researcher added that “We are doing dogs no [favor] by expecting too much of them. Dogs are dogs, and we need to take their needs and true abilities into account when considering how we treat them.”