It has long been my suspicion that the ownership of purebred dogs is at least in part aspirational. Ross Pomeroy’s report on a study of canine intelligence at RealClearScience makes one wonder about that:
Researchers at the University of Helsinki in Finland put over 1,000 dogs from 13 distinct breeds through a battery of cognitive tests in perhaps the largest laboratory study of canine intelligence ever conducted. Their findings were recently published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Between March 2016 and February 2022, the authors invited dog owners to bring their one- to eight-year-old pups into a large indoor field to undergo the smartDOG test battery, which was developed by study author Katriina Tiira.
AS will surprise no one Border Collies are the smartest. Labrador Retrievers on the other hand were the dumbest. They’re also the most popular breed in the United States.
Well, duh. A border collie will run you ragged, give you a heart attack. A golden retriever will sleep on the couch next to you, and leave you alone.
They should have thrown a few cats into the mix.
If you’re not tough enough to run as regulated a household as border collies demand, they’ll run it for you, becoming increasingly neurotic in the process. Goldies and labs are just happy to get fat doing things your way. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.