New 'dog IQ test' paves way for health research

A newly-developed IQ test for dogs, which can help you find out whether or not your pooch is a canine Einstein, could pave the way for breakthroughs in our understanding of the link between intelligence and health.

The Edinburgh University researchers have discovered that dog intelligence works in the same way as human intelligence, the Mirror reported.

Recent studies have shown that brighter people tend to live longer, and so scientists believe if they can prove the same is true in dogs they can use them to study long-term health problems such as dementia.

Researcher Rosalind Arden said that the discovery could have far reaching implications for understanding human health and disease and canine health and disease, adding "We asked the question, if a dog is good at one test does it tend to be better than average at the other test? And we found that yes that's true."

Scientists put the intelligence of 68 working border collies to the test by devising a series of cognitive tasks for them to carry out. One involved finding their way to a food reward they could see but was behind a barrier and another involved offering two plates of food and assessing if the dogs learnt to go to the one with the bigger portion.

Those that performed well in one of these tasks tended to be above average in the others too.

It can be notoriously tricky to investigate whether or not brighter people tend to live longer because of our lifestyle choices, like smoking, eating, drinking and exercising, have a major impact on our health.

Dogs offer a good insight because they are "basically teetotal", Dr Arden said.

The study appears in published in the journal Intelligence.