Who's Smarter Dogs or Cats?

This question has raised debates between dog lovers and cat huggers. It’s really not sensible to compare an apple to an orange, or a bamboo to an oak tree.  Rating the intelligence of two different species is not easy since they’ve taken different paths of the evolutionary road.  Their abilities are based on their body structure too.  And animal intelligence must not be based on how much human involvement was spent in training them.

It’s been said that the bigger the brain, the higher the intelligence.  If that is the case, then the elephant must be the smartest land creature in this era.  And if it were so, then man would not be on top of the food chain and the elephant would not be chained to their ankles anywhere in the world.  So, the answer is no.  Brain size does not matter at all.  The alternative measure of intelligence called Encephalization Quotient or EQ does show the man is the smartest animal followed by great apes and elephants.  It seems that a creature’s skill in being able to look for food and feed itself is a significant factor in EQ ratings.  That means domesticated cats and dogs would be way down the list since they mostly rely on their owners to survive.

Socialization factors appear to be a basis of dog and cat rivalry on intelligence.  Their mingling skill with their human masters is how man rates their brainpower.  Dogs get more pressure from the owners as the canine is expected to guard and protect humans other than being a companion.  Their hunting nature derived from the wolf genes make dogs aggressive, possessive and protective.  The cat, however, is a worry-free creature that would not care to move a muscle unless they need sustenance.  They will avoid learning tricks and it seems that they will deliberately ignore their owners.  Given these different completely different temperaments of animals, how do you gauge which creature is smarter?

Dogs do get a lot of attention nowadays.  They’re dressed up, hygienically trained and getting expensively pampered more.  They’re even featured in a lot of TV shows.  But the feline’s popularity is catching on.  There are 1000's of cat videos to date and these are not ordinary meowing clips.  One thing pet owners have to remember is that cats and dogs do not care if they’re smarter than the other.  They simply enjoy being human companions and it should just be left at that.