Scientists say they can now test the IQ of a dog

[File photo shows a rescue dog named Buddy. Sarah Ause Kichas/Best Friends Animal Society via AP]

If your dog’s retrieving skills amaze you, you soon might have a chance to test if your pooch is in fact, smarter than average.

A study published this month in the journal Intelligence found that dogs that aced one test seemed to do well on others – just like humans. It’s the first time that parallels have been drawn between human and canine intelligence.

Scientists Rosalind Arden and Mark Adam also found the test could be used to accurately gauge a dog’s intelligence and noted that the quicker a dog responded to a test’s prompts, the more precise its responses would be.

The test subjects were 68 border collies that worked on farms in Wales. They were given a number of tasks, such as choosing which of two plates had a larger portion of food and making their way through a maze in order to obtain a treat.

The researchers concluded that their results were “consistent with the prediction made by the many experts in the ‘dog world’—trainers, veterinarians, members of dog societies, and farmers—who were consulted in the early stages of this study,” the authors write.

“Those experts said that in their experience some dogs were more likely to catch on, learn and solve problems more quickly than others,” which the study confirmed.

The researchers say that gaging intelligences in “other species will constitute a major advance in understanding the evolution of intelligence.” Since dogs don’t engage in factors that could affect a human’s IQ – like bad habits or socio-economic circumstances - they are an ideal model for understanding the link between genetics and intelligence.