Are Dogs as Smart as Human Toddlers?

How smart are dogs? Those of us who are dog owners likely think that our pets are pretty darn smart. One problem, however, is that we tend to anthropomorphize our pets – meaning we ascribe human qualities to them, and sometimes trick ourselves into thinking they are smarter than they actually are (see Bouma, et al., 2023).

It is common for pet owners to ascribe complex human behaviors and emotions to our pets, believing that they are displaying feelings of empathy, jealousy, and even, at times, trying to deceive us. It is extremely difficult, however, to actually objectively test a dog's (or especially a cat's!) intellectual and emotional abilities.

A recent review in Scientific American summarized recent research on very smart dogs (mostly border collies). One relatively clear finding was that dogs do indeed develop a "vocabulary" of words. Most dogs can learn simple commands, recognize their names, and the names of items in their daily lives (e.g., “food,” “toy”) or actions (“walk,” “dinner”). In this study, researchers wanted to explore if dogs could go beyond simply learning names for things and actually understand functions. They taught 10 smart dogs words for two categories of toys (tug toys, such as a rope; and, fetch toys, such as a ball). They used the word “pulls” for the tug toys, and “throws” for the fetch toys.

After 4 weeks of training to associate the different toys with the words “pulls” and “throws,” they introduced completely different-looking toys that shared the same function. The dogs were then asked to fetch either a pull or a throw toy from the new toys. They were correct in two-thirds of the trials. In short, the dogs were generally able to categorize these unfamiliar toys based on their function. This is an operation that human toddlers learn at about 14 months of age.

So, how smart are our dogs beyond such training? I will recount one episode that occurred with our golden retriever, Hunter, and our cat, Hank. Home alone, I inadvertently left Hank playing in the backyard as night fell. I noticed that Hunter, who could come and go through his doggie door, was running inside and out to the side of our house, and back again, looking at me, and then running outside again. Since Hunter rarely went to that side of the house, I finally realized that something was up. Following the beckoning dog outside, he led me to a neighbor’s tree that overhung our backyard. There on a low branch was Hank. He had been attacked by coyotes and was clinging to the tree, barely out of reach of the coyotes. (Fortunately, I was able to get Hank to the emergency vet and he eventually recovered from several bites).

Was Hunter smart enough to realize that his pet companion was in danger, and did he alert his owner to the predicament? Or, was I anthropomorphizing, and Hunter was only reacting to the presence of the coyotes? It is clearly difficult to test the intelligence of non-humans in the absence of language to truly understand how smart our pets actually are.