Belgian malinois is pick of the pack for brains as it’s named world’s most intelligent dog 

The Belgian Malinois has been found to be the most intelligent dog in a study of 13 different breeds.

The scientists tested 1,000 dogs by giving them seven cognitive and three behavioral tasks.

Tests included their ability to read human gestures and whether the animals could detour around a transparent V-shaped fence to access a food reward they could see. The researchers also investigated how independent a dog was and how quickly they turned to a human for help by giving them an unsolvable task: trying to access food in a sealed box.

The Belgian Malinois was found to be the smartest dog out of 13 different breeds.

The Malinois, often used as a police dog or guard dog, came in first with 35 points out of 39. Border collies came second with 26 points, while the Hovawart, a German breed, was third with 25 points. .

Dr Katriina Tiira, from the University of Helsinki in Finland, told The Sunday Telegraph: “The Belgian Malinois excelled on many of the cognitive tasks, performing very well on most tests.”

Saara Junttila, co-author of the study and a PhD researcher in canine cognition at the University of Helsinki, added: “Most breeds had their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Labrador retriever was very good at reading human gestures, but not so good at solving spatial problems. Some breeds, such as the Shetland Sheepdog, scored fairly evenly in almost all tests.

The selected dogs had to be interested in working for food and not be overly aggressive towards people. The researchers chose pets between the ages of one and eight years, as cognitive traits may not have fully developed in younger dogs, while older dogs may experience cognitive decline.

They underwent smartDOG testing between March 2016 and February 2022.

Scientists tested 1,000 dogs by giving them seven cognitive and three behavioral tasks (file image)

The tests included one in which the dog was shown two bowls of food. One was empty, the other had food on it but it was covered. The idea was to see if the animal could find the food that was in the other bowl.

The team said this test would be the best indicator of general intelligence, but the data revealed no difference between dog breeds for this task.

However, three tasks, each testing a specific aspect of the dog’s cognition, showed how the breeds differed.

One was a V-diversion task, where the dog had to detour around a transparent V-shaped fence to access a food reward that it could see. Its objective was to measure the ability to solve problems.

The team measured the dogs’ ability to read gestures by having them respond to five human movements: constant pointing, brief pointing, foot pointing, pointing while looking in another direction, and following a gaze.

The researchers also investigated how independent a dog was and how quickly they turned to a human for help by giving them an unsolvable task. They were asked to try to access food in a sealed box.