Are dogs more intelligent than cats?

You and your closest friend rarely argue, except over one subject: Pet smarts. She knows a lot about cats and says they're smarter than dogs, but you as a pet parent with two dogs think she's wrong.

Who's right?

Scientists have recently designed certain techniques and measures that may give us the definitive answer. One of the measurements that animal psychologists and biologists have used to assess intelligence is called the Encephalization Quotient, and another is sociability.

In the late 1970s, psychologist Harry J. Jerison developed Encephalization Quotient or EQ. It's a mathematically sophisticated comparison of the actual brain weight of an animal compared to the expected brain mass for that animal's body size. Because this method accounts for the fact that larger animals usually have larger brains, it's a more accurate indicator of intelligence than simple brain size.

Social animals are typically brighter than solitary creatures. Because problem-solving is a regular part of social interaction, animals that live in groups have better opportunities for cognitive development. Social animals tend to have a higher EQ than those that live the solitary life.

Based on the EQ, the brightest animals on the planet are humans, followed by great apes, porpoises, and elephants. The dog is close behind elephants in its EQ.

Dogs have always been regarded as the more social animals while cats often go it alone.

By the standard of EQ, dogs come out slightly ahead of the intelligence game over cats. According to Wikipedia, there is only a 0.2 percent advantage to the dog. Such a minute difference may be the reason dog and cat parents argue about their favorite pets.

An Oxford University research team looked at how 500 species, both living and fossilized, have evolved over about 60 million years. The ones that lived in social groups had much larger brains, relative to body size, than those species that tend to be self-sufficient.

However, there is a real surprise that occurs in some recent data provided by two researchers at Oxford University. They wondered whether there had been evolutionary changes in the Encephalization Index over the years.

When we domesticate animals, especially a companion dog, we are placing new learning demands on it. Some of these demands are social in nature, such as understanding human communication, like words and gestures. So, dogs are really subjected to more pressure than cats. Therefore, over time it might be expected that dogs would show a greater rise in their EQ than cats.

It appears that, based on their EQ, dogs are becoming progressively more intelligent over time while cats have remained at much the same level of mental ability that they had when we first domesticated them.

But if pet parents would look at their cats from a different perspective and start giving them basic training like canines receive, felines just might catch up.

For right now, the age-old argument remains. A cat-lover will argue how their kitten is smarter than your puppy because he doesn't need any potty training. A dog lover will tell you that if cats were smarter, why aren't there any seeing-eye cats?