Quiz Time!! ----- My Dogs Smarter Than Yours ----- Answers are below all the questions, so dont cheat & post your results in the comments! I got 12 out of 15 right. ~Chels Q1: TRUE or FALSE: Some dog breeds are smarter than others? Q2: Whats the smartest dog breed? A) Poodle, B) Border Collie, C) German Shepherd, or D) Dobeman Pinscher? Q3: Whats the least intelligent dog breed? A) Afghan Hound, B) Beagle, C) Bulldog, or D) Mastiff Q4: TRUE or FALSE: Cats are smarter than dogs? Q5: About how many words can the average dog learn? A) 20, B) 40, C) 85, or D) 165 Q6: TRUE or FALSE: Dogs can count. Q7: TRUE or FALSE: Dogs dont understand time or space. Q8: In which type of intelligence are dogs most advanced? A) Verbal Intelligence, B) Numeric Intelligence, or C) Social Intelligence Q9: TRUE or FALSE: Mentally, a dog is like a 1-year-old child. Q10: TRUE or FALSE: You can make your dog more obedient and/or better trained, but you cant make your dog smarter. Q11: Dogs are smarter than which animals? A) Horses, B) Elephants, C) Chimpanzees, or D) All of the above Q12: TRUE or FALSE: Dogs may try to trick you. Q13: TRUE or FALSE: Dogs may be getting smarter. Q14: TRUE or FALSE: You cant teach an old dog new tricks. Q15: TRUE or FALSE: Smarter dogs are always better pets than less intelligent dogs. -------------------------ANSWERS------------------------- A1: TRUE - Intelligence comes in many forms, even in dogs, so its hard to say whether one breed is really smarter than another. But there are definite differences. There are three major types of dog smarts: instinctive intelligence (what a dog is bred for), adaptive intelligence (what a dog can learn by itself), and working and obedience intelligence (what people can teach a dog to do). Comparing breeds can be hard for the first two types, but theres a wide range in brainpower among breeds in working and obedience intelligence. A2: B) Border Collie - The bumper sticker My border collie is smarter than your honor student may be an exaggeration, but border collies are considered the smartest breed in training and obedience. In a survey, 199 of 208 obedience training judges ranked border collies in the top 10. The others, in order, were Poodles, German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers, Dobermans, Shetland sheepdogs, Labrador retrievers, Papillons, Rottweilers, and Australian cattle dogs. A3: A) Afghan Hound - Sorry, Afghan hound fans. These dogs ranked lowest on tests of working and obedience intelligence. They were considered the least trainable breed, followed by the Basenji, Bulldog, Chow Chow, Borzoi, Bloodhound, Pekingese, Beagle, Mastiff, and Basset Hound. A4: FALSE - Cat lovers and dog lovers argue this one all the time. It kind of depends on what we mean by smarter. In tests, cats are smarter when it comes to using their paws -- like to pull strings or levers. However, dogs are more trainable, more social, and more able to understand human gestures and words. Plus, theres the brain size issue. In proportion to their body sizes, dog brains are bigger than cat brains. In the science world, brain size is usually a pretty reliable measure of a species smarts. A5: D) 165 - The average dog can learn 165 words. Super dogs -- those in the top 20% of intelligence -- can learn 250 words, and the very smartest dogs may be capable of much more. Researchers have taught a border collie named Chaser more than 1,000 words -- about the same vocabulary as a 3-year-old child. A6: TRUE - Maybe you cant ask a dog whats one plus one and get an answer. But tests show that dogs can count up to four or five and understand the idea of addition and subtraction. If a dog sees a bowl with five pieces of food and another with two, hell likely choose the bowl with more pieces. A7: FALSE - Dogs understand simple ideas of space. Theyre good at making a mental map of the space around them, as long as they have some landmarks. And while the concept of time is a little bit harder, they understand that things happen in some kind of order. They understand that one thing happens before or after something else. A8: C) Social Intelligence - In terms of social intelligence -- the ability to communicate and cooperate with others -- dogs are very clever. Not only can they interact well with other dogs, but they are very good at communicating with humans. The quiz author ranks dogs social intelligence on par with human teenagers. Theyre really interested in whos who in the pack, and whos moving up in the pack, and whos sleeping with who and so on. A9: FALSE - The average dog has the language understanding of about a 2-year-old child and understands numbers like a child between 2 and 3 years old. A10: FALSE - You CAN make your dog smarter. Dogs raised in a mentally stimulating environment learn faster than dogs raised in a boring one. New experiences and challenges help new neural connections form inside the dogs brain. A11: C) Horses - It can be hard to compare the intelligence of different species. But based on brain size and body size, dogs are among the smartest animals on the planet. Only humans, the great apes, porpoises, and elephants are smarter. Why are dogs smart? It could be because theyre hunters who have to use their brains to catch prey. It also could be because they’re very social -- they need brainpower to communicate and cooperate. A12: TRUE - Experiments show that dogs will purposely fool people and other dogs to get what they want. When a person and a dog are playing and they try to trick each other, a person can fool a dog about 47% of the time. A dog has nearly the same success rate. He can fool a person about 41% of the time! A13: TRUE - Dogs today have bigger brains relative to their body weight than their ancestors did. This could be due to selective breeding for skills that require intelligence -- such as hunting, guarding, guiding, and shepherding. A14: FALSE - Not only can old dogs learn new things, but new challenges also can help hold back the mental decline thats sometimes a part of aging. Canine Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome in dogs is, often compared to Alzheimers disease in people. Both can lead to disorientation, unresponsiveness, social withdrawal, and house-training accidents. More mental activity and challenges can help slow these developments or other kinds of mental decline. Exercise also can help. A15: FALSE - If you want a working dog, then pick a brighter breed. But smart dogs can be more demanding; they tend to need more attention and may be more high-strung and quicker to react in both positive and negative ways. People ask me why I have a beagle, says the quiz author. Beagles are seven from the bottom in terms of obedience training … (but) I have nine grandchildren, so I needed a dog whos friendly and sociable and relatively unbreakable … its actually an advantage for me that this dog doesnt remember that that kid over there is the one who pulled his ear an hour ago.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 16:19:13 +0000
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