When someone says that the border collie is the smartest breed, they are almost always citing, whether they know it or not, Stanley Coren. This Canadian psychologist published the book The Intelligence of Dogs in 1994, featuring a breed ranking that is still shared three decades later. It is useful and curious, but it is worth knowing exactly what it measures before taking it as an absolute truth.
How the ranking was made
Coren sent a questionnaire to obedience trial judges in the United States and Canada. He asked them, among other things, which breeds learned a new command the fastest and which obeyed on the first attempt most frequently. With those responses, he ranked over a hundred breeds.
Coren distinguished three types of canine intelligence:
- Instinctive: what the breed was selected for, such as herding, tracking, or retrieving.
- Adaptive: the ability of each dog to learn from its environment and solve problems on its own.
- Working and obedience: the ease of learning commands from a person.
His famous ranking measures only the third. That is, which breeds are easiest to train in obedience, not which ones are "smarter" in general.
The top ten on the list
- Border collie: herding dog, very attentive to its handler's signals.
- Poodle: originally a water dog and retriever, very versatile.
- German shepherd: common in police, rescue, and assistance work.
- Golden retriever: widely used as a guide and therapy dog.
- Doberman.
- Shetland sheepdog.
- Labrador retriever.
- Papillon: the only small breed in the top group.
- Rottweiler.
- Australian cattle dog.
According to Coren, the top breeds learned a new command in very few repetitions and obeyed on the first attempt the vast majority of the time.
Dogs that know hundreds of words
You have surely read that the border collie "learns more than a thousand words." The data comes from a specific dog, Chaser, who lived in the United States. Her owner, psychologist John Pilley, trained her for years and published in 2011 that she recognized more than 1,000 different toys by name. She also learned to associate new names by process of elimination and to combine commands.
This is not something every border collie does. Subsequent research with dogs from all over the world has found that only a few individuals learn object names with such ease. Many are border collies, yes, but most dogs, including those of that breed, do not do it.
What the ranking doesn't tell you
- The breeds at the "bottom" are not unintelligent. At the low end are the Afghan hound, the Basenji, the bulldog, the beagle, and the basset hound. Many are breeds selected to work on their own, tracking or hunting far from the person, so obeying quickly was never their priority.
- A hound following a scent is solving a highly complicated problem, even if it doesn't come when you call it.
- Within a breed, there is much variation. Breeding, socialization, and training carry a lot of weight.
- The data comes from surveys of judges, not from controlled tests on dogs. It is a useful snapshot of a specific time and type of dog.
What this means if you are going to get a dog
A breed that is very easy to train is usually also a breed that needs a lot of mental work. A bored border collie in an apartment may end up inventing its own tasks, and you won't always like them. Before choosing based on the list, think about:
- How much time you have for walks, play, and training every day.
- What the breed was selected for and if it fits your life.
- How you are going to train: with positive reinforcement, short sessions, and plenty of patience, any dog can learn.
A good way to start is by teaching it to walk without pulling; you have some ideas in what to do if your dog pulls on the leash.
And for training sessions, in our dog training section, you have treat pouches, treat launchers, and reward toys.