Re: Are dogs more intelligent than cats

Dear Marc,

thanks for asking, yours is a rather philosophical question. When we use
a classic definition like "ability for abstract reasoning" or suchlike
we get in  trouble, because how would we know? The ability to learn by
imitation could be an indication for abstract reasoning, this has been
shown in monkeys and in cats, not in dogs.

Another attempt to roughly estimate animal intelligence is to put the
weight of the brain in relation to the body weight (bw). This ratio is
highest in humans. In animals the apes have the highest brain/bw ratio
followed by the whales and dolphins and then by cats. Dogs come later.

If we define animal intelligence roughly as "ability to learn" -  there
are two elements of learning: the ability to solve a given problem and
the motivation to do so. Whith cats usually the motivation is the
problem. I'll try to explain why.

Cats are solitary  hunters. Their main points of orientation in life are
time and space - social interactions are not frequent (at least for cats
living in the wild). Cats can learn a lot - but they don't have a
"social" motivation for learning, what makes training them sometimes
quite difficult.

Dogs are group hunters. Their main aspects of life are the social group
and the hierarchy they live in. They must have exact communication
skills to hunt sucessfully - this makes them much easier to train, they
are eager to fulfill their social tasks by obeying orders.

Finally I found an intelligence test for dogs on the web: http://members.aol.com/dogboneclub/archive.htm#IQ , it's a bit silly, but 
fun.


And  I found an interesting article:
Davis SL, Cheeke PR; J Anim Sci 1998 Aug 76:8 2072-9: Do domestic
animals have minds and the ability to think? A provisional sample of
opinions on the question

The scientists asked a lot of people (scientists working whith animals,
students and others) to rank animals by intelligence and all groups came
to a similiar ranking: the overall ranking from highest intelligence to
lowest was dog, cat, pig, horse, cow, sheep, chicken, and turkey.

But I'm sure every cat owner will protest :-)
Hope this helps
Eva