"My Own Dog Is an Idiot, but She’s a Lovable Idiot.”

In a 2013 interview in Scientific American conducted by Gareth Cook, Dr. Brian Hare, co-author of The Genius of Dogs with Vanessa Wood and founder of the Duke Canine Cognition Center, was asked, “What is the biggest misconception people have about the dog mind?” His answer: “That there are ‘smart’ dogs and ‘dumb’ dogs . . . There’s still this throwback to a unidimensional version of intelligence, as though there is only one type of intelligence that you either have more or less of.”

Hare is right on the mark. There are multiple intelligences in dogs and other animals, and individual differences are to be expected. Differences are the rule rather than the exception. Research has shown that many different variables can influence a dog’s performance in laboratory settings, and I often wonder how data collected in controlled experiments transfers to dogs in real life, as dogs run around at dog parks and other venues and cope with changing social contexts and physical environs.

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The word “intelligence” generally refers to the ability of an individual to acquire knowledge and use it to adapt to different situations — to do what’s needed to accomplish various tasks, and survive. A friend of mine once told me about the free-running dogs she knew in a small town in Mexico who were cleverly street-smart and could survive in difficult conditions, but didn’t listen to humans all that well. Some were skilled at finding and snatching food and avoiding dogcatchers, unfriendly dogs, and people. Some were good at “playing” humans for food, whereas others weren’t. Conversely, I’ve known some intelligent, crafty, and adaptable dogs who weren’t street-smart, and likely couldn’t make it in such an environment. However, a few with whom I shared my home could easily steal my food and that of the other resident dog in a heartbeat, without either of us knowing what was happening.

Which dogs were “smarter” and which “dumber”? Neither, of course. Relatively speaking, these dogs were equally intelligent, but they adapted their smarts to different circumstances. Outside those contexts, they might appear quite “dumb” to us. I’ve lived with and met enough dogs to know that saying one is smarter than another is usually a mischaracterization of who, as individuals, they truly are.

Are there really dog dullards who should be called idiots?

In January 2017, Jan Hoffman wrote an essay in the New York Times called “To Rate How Smart Dogs Are, Humans Learn New Tricks.” Two quotes there by Dr. Clive Wynne, an Arizona State University dog researcher, caught my eye: “Smart dogs are often a nuisance. . . . They get restless, bored and create trouble,” and “I think ‘smarts’ is a red herring. . . . What we really need in our dogs is affection. My own dog is an idiot, but she’s a lovable idiot.”¹

When I looked up definitions of the word "idiot," I found "fool, ass, halfwit, nincompoop, dunce, dolt, ignoramus, cretin, imbecile, dullard, moron, simpleton, clod," among numerous others. These are pretty strong words that can easily color how we view a dog or another animal and what we might come to expect from them and say to others about their behavior. I've heard some people refer to "rescues" using these words, as if they're using this as an excuse for a dog doing something "bad" or for not doing what they want the dog to do. (For more, see "Larry and Harry Are Rescued Dogs and No Quirkier Than Yours" and "Using the 'She’s a Rescue Dog' Excuse.")

I know well that smart dogs can be a nuisance, but so too can dogs whom we believe are not all that clever. I’ve seen this over and over again. All sorts of dogs become a nuisance to us for all sorts of reasons, but it’s not because of their levels of intelligence. The same is true regarding affection: All dogs, relatively speaking, can be equally affectionate, and this has nothing to do with smarts. These value judgments reflect who we are and what we want from our dog. They arise from the particular success or frustrations that humans encounter as they interact with particular dogs, but they don’t reflect a common truth about who dogs really are. When dogs are experienced as a “nuisance,” it’s usually because their human simply doesn’t understand what their dog is doing or trying to tell them. Because there are different types of canine intelligence, I’m not sure what it means to talk about smart and not-so-smart dogs.

But people still ask me, "What about dogs who truly act like idiots?" Aren’t there really dunce dogs? Once again, we need to be careful about characterizing dogs in this way. One of my favorite quotes about how we refer to other animals comes from the Hungarian anatomist János Szentágothai, who famously remarked, “There are no ‘unintelligent’ animals; only careless observations and poorly designed experiments.” We’ve known for a long time that dogs aren’t brain-dead beings, nor are they dumbed-down wolves.

Who's smarter than who?

Questions I'm frequently asked deal with species differences in intelligence — are dogs smarter than cats, are birds smarter than fish, for example. I always say that animals need to do what's needed for them to be "card-carrying" members of their species, and we must remember that numerous nonhumans outperform us in many different ways, so the question about comparing different species doesn't mean much to me. Thus, I really like how Hare and Woods write about this topic:

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"The cognitive approach celebrates many different types of intelligence and liberates us from the idea that intelligence is a linear scale with sea sponges at the bottom and humans at the top. Asking if a dolphin is smarter than a crow is like asking if a hammer is better than a saw. Which is a better tool depends on the task at hand or, in case of animals, which challenges they must regularly confront to survive and reproduce."

It's important to appreciate and come to understand individual differences among dogs and other animals

Calling a dog an idiot is wrong-headed, and cross-species comparisons are fraught with error. I know it's sort of cutesy to make eye-catching statements like calling a dog a dummy, but it's also very misleading. It's time we stop using these sorts of words and comparisons and focus on dogs as individuals. There really is no "the dog," and what's so exciting about studying the cognitive and emotional lives of dogs and other animals is how much individual variation there is among members of the same species.

Calling an individual an idiot might also be used as an excuse for their being slow to learn something or for their continuing to do something we'd rather they didn't, when in fact some hard work, understanding, and tolerance could change their behavior. Just like using the "Oh, they're a rescue" to excuse different sorts of behavior has to stop, so too does disparaging a dog's intelligence.

The interesting challenge is to understand each and every individual for who they are, and to come to appreciate why there are these differences in cognitive skills, emotional capacities, and personality.

People who have been around many very young dogs often remark how different they are right after birth, and surely this has been my experience with youngsters of various different canid species. I remember when I was doing field work on the social ecology of wild coyotes how different pups were when they first emerged from their den at around three weeks of age. They had the same parents, developed in the same den, yet were distinctly different when they first saw the light of day. Never did I think that any of these animals, young or old, were idiots. Sure, some were slower than others in learning certain skills, but overall, each individual displayed skills that others didn't, and none was unequivocally dumb. The word "idiot" never entered my mind or any of my field assistants'.

Let's celebrate the year of the dog and continue learning about their emotional and cognitive capacities and how they develop, and why they have evolved. These data will surely be important in fostering and maintaining deep and reciprocal bonds between humans and dogs. Shared emotions work as a "social glue" to bond individuals of different species to one another, and when this happens, it can be a win-win for all. Dogs need all the help they can get in a human-dominated world, but unfortunately numerous dogs don't get what they want and need. Appreciating each and every individual's unique traits and being sure that a social relationship is good for all the beings involved, human and nonhuman, has to be the wave of the future.

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¹Please also see "Is Everything in a Dog’s Life Really 'Pretty Short-Lived'?" for another quote: "But everything in a dog’s life is pretty short-lived. It’s over quickly."

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