Cats or Dogs
For someone who doesn’t have pets I spend quite a bit of my time thinking about them. The other day I was wondering who was smarter cats or dogs. Since no cats or dogs were volunteering to take the IQ test I was administering, I decided to do some intensive research on the subject. Here intensive research is short for poking around the interwebs for about ten minutes.
Anyone whose read Garfield can tell you that cats are definitely smarter than dogs. I was fooled by this extremely realistic cartoon about a cat who eats lasagne too, but my research has found that dogs are indeed smarter than cats. Apparently, being social makes you develop a bigger brain. Who would’ve thunk that?! Upon reading that I got extremely worried about my own intelligence because I’m not exactly social.
When tested a dog will pull a string for a reward, but a cats would rather take a nap. Dogs look at your face to read your emotions, but cats would rather not have to look at your ugly face at all. It’s not that cut and dry though because even though a cat’s brain is smaller compared to body weight it has 300 million neurons in the cortex (the thinking part of the brain). Dogs on the other hand only have 160 million neurons in their cortexes. (I have no idea how to pluralize that word, I wonder if that means my cotrex is lacking neurons.)
My husband who is always so diplomatic says, “It’s impossible to really compare them because they each have a different kind of intelligence.”
Whatever … I want a clear answer to this question. From my extensive research, I’ve come to the conclusion that dogs are definitely smarter. If you are a cat owner and you feel like I’ve insulted your cat by implying that he isn’t as smart as the yappy dog up the road, I’m sorry, but I do have some very good news for you. A 2007 study done by Department of Clinical Veterinary Science at Bristol University found that cat owners on average are smarter than dog owners. They didn’t say anything about people who own a collection of hairy free range spiders, but I’m sure we’re probably the smartest of all.
Photo by sskennel
