Dog Intelligence - A Bit on Canine IQ

Here's something about the Canine IQ test - which Coren called 'CIQ'. Okay, first off, let me tell you that your dog doesn't have to be a 'Caninestein' to be loved. It doesn't really matter how sharp a creature your lovely little pooch may be, he or she should be loved forever... untill the final drop of life! Remember, you have your friends, your chess board, your swiming pool, your golf ground, your novels, DVDs, CDs, and what not? Bruno has no one but you!

Stuff about 'CIQ' - Canine Intelligent Quotient is one of te most interesting subject that would grab readers' attention - I'm sure. The Canine IQ test, we're talking about here, had been formulated by Dr. Coren - Dr. Stanley Coren, who's the professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and an authority on canine intelligence and an award winning dog trainer too! With such a vigorous profile, Coren stepped ahead to come up with what's called Canine IQ test to determine the most and least intelligent dog breed across the board.

Dr. Coren defines three distinctive dog intelligences - 'Adaptive intelligence', 'Working or obedience intelligence' and 'Instinctive intelligence'; check out my previous post. Coren states that all these three categories of intelligence play their respective roles when it comes to dog intelligence. The breeds that have been found to obey the pre-taught commands 95 percent of times, with at most 5 repetitions for each command have enrolled their names in the Top Ten Intelligent Dog Breeds of the world. Coren treated them to be the best and the brightest specimen.
One of the most significant part of Coren's research work was the attempt to analyze the obedience trial results of AKC. He sent out his survey to all the all-breed as well as breed specific obedience judges in USA and Canada. 208 judges (half of the people who got his survey) hit him back with their valued responses. Coren gave detailed telephonic interviews to 24 judges of them.

Three Parts of Coren's Survey

Part 1: Judges scored the 74 most popular dog breeds on a scale ranging between 7 to 1.

• Position 7: Breeds that ranked top in Obedience trial field.
• Position 6: Breeds that achieved good scores most of the times
• Position 5: Breeds that achieved qualifying scores around 50% of times
• Position 4: Breeds that are expected to qualify almost 50% of times - but practically they might have failed at times.
• Position 3: Breeds that failed to achieve the qualifying scores even less than 50 % of times
• Position 2: Breeds that are expected to fail most of the time
• Position 1: Breeds that are known to be worst when it comes to obedience test.

Part 2: Judges rated the same specimen on the basis of the same scale for their ability to learn new things and solve problems.

Part 3: Judges documented what they considered in the ten MOST and LEAST intelligent canine breed. Time was the most significant parameter that was taken into consideration. Time signifies the 'time taken to learn commands' for various breeds and 'time taken to execute the first command' for various breeds. These parameters are the base lines to analyze the agility, swiftness, concentration level, degree of stubbornness and memory power of various breeds. Judges also considered whether regular practice is an important parameter for a specific breed, and whether the distance at which a particular command is thrown makes a difference.

Good news is that GSDs rank third in the world. It's not that I love them so I say they are intelligent. They are intelligent, so I love them! So why wait? Put your Rex on test... Click here.

One Question of Mine

I am sure all the judges haven't given same numbers to all the breeds in the test. Did Coren analyzed the correlation coefficient taking into consideration of the marks given by the judges? He would have got a clue of how closely these judges had mental match with each other while examining dog intelligence.