Dogs Outsmart Kids

Check out this article from livescience.com.

Stanley Coren, a canine expert and professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia has made it official: dogs are as smart as a 2 year old human when comparing language skills. Coren posits that Border Collies, Poodles and German Shepherds (in that order) are on par with a 2 and half year old. Even more interesting, dogs would outsmart a 3 or 4 year old in basic arithmetic.

Coren also reports that dogs are socially more adept than human toddlers too: "the social life of dogs is much more complex, much more like human teenagers at that stage, interested in who is moving up in the pack and who is sleeping with who and that sort of thing."

Interestingly, older breeds such as hounds and some hunting dogs scored lower on the intelligence tests. More recently introduced breeds score higher. Coren believes that there's a "high probability that we've been breeding dogs so they're more responsive to human beings and human signals."

Even with all this good news, Shadow, Jill's Poodle, is frustrated because he's been unable to type up an email to Mr. Coren outlining his objections to being ranked second. He's been muttering darkly about "opposable thumbs."