If Your Dog Possesses These 3 Traits, They Could Be a Genius, New Study Says

You might think your pet is the smartest pup at the dog park — but are they a “label learner?” Only a few dogs in the world fall into this specific brainy category. Label-learner dogs are able to recognize a vast number of objects by name alone, and when it comes to canines, they’re considered to be the smartest of the smart. Scientists have long tried to pinpoint what makes these dogs so intelligent. And now, a new study published in Scientific Reports identified three key traits that set genius dogs apart: curiosity, focus, and self-control.

“Being able to pick out such a wide variety of objects is not something any dog can do,” study lead Dr. Juliane Kaminski told the University of Portsmouth blog. “It is extremely rare and appears to be an inherent natural ability which is specific to the dog and not a quality that many dogs have.”  

In the new study, researchers at the University of Portsmouth examined 11 label-learning dogs across the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany. The dogs varied in breed, from Border Collies, mixed breeds, Spanish Water Dogs, and Pugs. Each dog had to pass an initial screening test, which involved fetching objects by name while their caretaker was out of sight.

Since the dogs were spread across countries and continents, the study was done as a “citizen-science” project, which means the dogs’ parents were the ones conducting the actual experiments. They were given detailed instruction on how to administer the various cognitive tests which measured the dogs’ curiosity, problem solving, learning, memory, and human communication. This was all measured against a control group of non-label-learner dogs.

“Label-learner dogs are so rare that it was not possible to find more than 11 for this particular study,” Dr. Juliane Bräuer, a professor from Germany’s Friedrich Schiller University Jena, who collaborated on the study, said. “However, to find such clear differences between label learners and the average dogs, was really surprising.”  

Compared to the average dogs, the label-learner dogs spent significantly longer interacting with new objects and looked at them with more frequency; this indicated to researchers that label-learners are more curious about new objects. The label-learner dogs also exhibited targeted interest in specific objects, while the control group dogs interacted more randomly, leading researchers to conclude that label-learner pups are especially focused. 

Finally, the label-learner dogs exhibited better impulse control than regular dogs. “Inhibitory control might be the essential cognitive building block underlying the label-learners ‘genius’ ability, as subjects must inhibit their preference for certain features of the objects they fetch,” Dr. Kaminski wrote.

“I am not so surprised that inhibition plays a role here,” added Dr Bräuer. “My own dog who is not a label-learner always struggled to inhibit her preferences when solving problems. She likes a ball so much, that she would not fetch a ring when a ball is present.”  

One of the dogs involved in the study is Harvey, a Border Collie who’s been dubbed one of the smartest dogs in the U.K. Harvey is able to identify over 220 objects. His mom, Irene Hewlett, gives him commands to fetch objects all day long — leaving their house covered in dog toys. 

"We play this game all day so it’s kind of his job. Border Collies are working dogs so they need a job to keep their minds occupied to make sure they don't do naughty things. He plays this all day," she said to BBC. 

Kaminski and Bräuer acknowledge that the study is limited, partly due to the fact that label-learning dogs are so rare. But even with the small sample size and the geographic range, the fact that the label-learner dogs displayed significant differences in temperament was meaningful. The scientists say that they will continue to study these traits to determine whether they are something that dogs innately possess as puppies or characteristics that develop through training. They hope to one day develop a “Puppy IQ Test” that could assess young dogs’ learning potential, which could in turn identify dogs that would be great in service roles.