A dog's intelligence is structurally comparable to that of humans.
Scientists have developed a dog IQ test which could pave the way for breakthroughs in understanding the link between intelligence and health.
It turns out, according to experts, that dog intelligence works in the same way as human intelligence. Dogs who perform well in one task also tend to do well in others — just like humans.
Recent studies have shown that brighter people often live longer, so scientists believe that if they can prove that the same is true for dogs, they can use them to study long-term health problems like dementia. Since dogs experience some key features of dementia, understanding their cognitive abilities may help us understand what causes the disease in humans and potentially lead to new treatments for it.
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“You'll find a dog that changes its social habits, it doesn't want to be petted any more, it becomes introverted and alone. They reproduce lots of the disturbances found in human dementia,” said Dr. Rosalind Arden, a research associate at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the UK to BBC.
The discovery could have “far reaching implications for understanding human health and disease and canine health and disease,” said Arden. “We asked the question, if a dog is good at one test does it tend to be better than average at the other test? And we found that yes that’s true.”
Scientists decided to put 68 working border collies to the test by having them perform a series of cognitive tasks. One involved having the dogs find their way to a food reward that they could see but was located behind a barrier. A second task involved offering two plates of food to see if the dogs would choose the one with the bigger portion.
It took just under one hour to test each dog, which the researchers say is how long it normally takes a person to complete an IQ test. Just like humans, dogs that performed well in one of the tasks also tended to do better than average in the others too. Additionally, they found that dogs that completed the tasks quicker also performed them more accurately.
Scientists have known for some time that brighter people tend to live longer. However, it is also very dependent on the lifestyle choices we make — smoking, eating, drinking and exercise — which have a huge impact on our health.
“So if, as our research suggests, dog intelligence is structured similarly to ours, studying a species that doesn't smoke, drink, use recreational drugs and does not have large differences in education and income, may help us understand this link between intelligence and health better,” said Dr. Arden.
The research is definitely in the early stages, however, the team hopes to create a faster and more accurate IQ test for dogs.
“Such a test could rapidly improve our understanding of the connection between dog intelligence, health, even lifespan, and be the foundation of ‘dognitive epidemiology,’” said study coauthor Dr. Mark Adams, of the UK's University of Edinburgh. “Dogs are excellent for this kind of work because they are willing to participate and seem to enjoy taking part.”
This gives a whole new meaning to “man’s best friend!”
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