Bigger Means Smarter?

All larger dogs appear to be better at following pointing cues from humans than smaller dogs. This alone makes us think that larger dogs are smarter than smaller dogs. But recently, another hypothesis has been tested by scientists at New Zealand. People over there believe that the larger dog’s have a wider set eyes which give them better depth perception. To test this hypothesis, the scientists there had 104 dogs. 61 of them were large dogs (greater than 50 lbs) and 43 of them were small dogs (less than 50 lbs). The dogs were already trained to retrieve food. Two bowls of food where placed in front of the dog at the same time. The experimenter pointed to one of the bowls and released the dog to go get it. The test was repeated 20 times for each dog. Helton and his colleagues found out that their hypothesis was not rejected. The larger dogs indeed were better at getting the bowls than the smaller dogs. The results thus prove that the wider the eyes were apart, then the better the dog would be able to follow directions.

This article relates to science and biology concepts because it is the study of how the intelligence of dogs is related to the dog’s eye width. This experiment can help scientists figure out how we affected the dog’s breeds. Dog behaviorist Benjamin Hart of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis says that there are so many breeds of dogs. "One expects larger breeds, selected for working roles, to be more likely to go to where a handler points. On the flip side, small breeds like terriers are bred to react quickly and scramble after fast-moving rodents,” said Hart.

This is important to us because we get to learn new things about other species, especially from a species we see almost every day. People can learn what type of dogs to buy or to not buy based on this information. They can know that larger dogs are more likely to pick the right choices while the smaller dogs’ jobs are to basically react quickly and chase after small rodents.

http://news.discovery.com/animals/dogs-intelligence-breeds.html