Left alone, nature operates natural selection, a process which leads to cleverer animals surviving more successfully. This led to the evolution of larger brained animals and ultimately to the dominance of humans over all animals.
But for dogs selective breeding has interrupted this process with a research study deciding that dogs with smaller brains relative to their overall size are cleverer as indicating by being more trainable and having better short-term memories.
The smaller toy dogs such as the Pomeranians have larger brains relative to their overall size (a higher REV – ‘relative endocrinal volume’) but this does not translate to smarter dogs as the toy dogs tend to be more likely to exhibit fear and aggression and attention-seeking disorders.
Collies are considered smart. Their REV scores are slightly higher than other working breeds and lower than for toy breeds. Labradors, golden retrievers and German shepherds have REV scores lower than for the small breeds but they are more trainable as are Rottweilers and Dobermans, two breeds which scored the highest for trainability.
The research was led by Dr Ana Balcarel of Montpelier University. She said:
“Just because a collie has a medium, middle-of-the-line brain size, it does not mean that they are not capable.”
She made the point that her research highlights how selective breeding by humans has made the dog ‘an oddity’ (The Times) in the animal kingdom as among wild mammals proportionally large brains are linked to social species (intelligence needed).
The human is the best example of this and dogs are also social species. However, the research found no link between REV and how well a breed tended to cooperate with humans – an indicator of social cognition.
Balceral added:
“This would have been evidence to support the idea that social cognition increases brain size but we don’t see it. It is because dogs are not representative of nature. This is my biggest takeaway from the study: they are anomalous because they have been so strongly artificially selected for these weird proportions and different body sizes.”
Dog breeders select for appearance primarily. This distorts natural selection which selects for maximum survivability. The same applies to cats. Appearance trumps every other goal as it is a characteristic which sells dogs and cats. The human is obsessed with appearance.
More: A dog’s breed is generally a poor predictor of their behaviour. Infographic.
Source for the article: The Times (my thanks).
