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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchThe Belgian Malinois is one of the strongest readers of human gestures in a large University of Helsinki dog-cognition study—but that does not make it the smartest breed in every sense. The 2022 study compared dogs on several separate tasks and found strengths that varied by task, with no significant breed differences in memory or logical reasoning.
What is the smartest dog breed?
There is no single winner established by the evidence. The Belgian Malinois stood out alongside Australian kelpies and Labrador retrievers at reading human gestures in the Helsinki study. Those results concern one ability, not a universal intelligence score.
Junttila and colleagues’ peer-reviewed 2022 study tested 1,002 dogs in 13 breeds or breed categories using the smartDOG cognitive test battery. It compared performance across specific tasks rather than combining them into an overall breed-IQ ranking. Read the study in Scientific Reports.
What did the study measure?
The researchers examined several distinct abilities and behaviors. Breed differences were statistically significant in some, but a result on one task should not be treated as a measure of every kind of intelligence.
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- Reading human gestures: understanding communicative cues from a person.
- Responding to misleading gestures: whether a dog followed a human cue that pointed it in the wrong direction.
- Spatial problem-solving: performance on a V-detour task.
- Inhibitory control: performance in a cylinder test that required controlling an immediate response.
- Behavior during an unsolvable task: including persistence and human-directed behavior.
The paper found no significant breed differences on its memory or logical-reasoning measures. That is another reason not to turn the findings into a single “smartest breed” result.
Why the Malinois gets named
The University of Helsinki’s account identifies the Malinois, kelpie and Labrador retriever as the most skilled readers of human gestures in the tested group. This is a meaningful strength, but it is specifically about interpreting human gestures. It does not establish that the Malinois leads all breeds across all cognitive skills.
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Likewise, claims that a Malinois scored “35 out of 39” or that a Border Collie ranked second overall are not findings reported by the primary study. The paper presents comparisons across component tasks, not that kind of overall score.
Why other “smartest dog” lists name the Border Collie
Popular rankings often draw on working and obedience intelligence: how readily dogs learn commands and perform trained tasks. That is a different way of defining intelligence from the Helsinki study, which tested social cognition, inhibitory control and spatial problem-solving, among other measures. A ranking based on obedience can therefore name a different breed without contradicting the Helsinki results.
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For context on the working-and-obedience approach, Stanley Coren’s The Intelligence of Dogs is often cited in popular discussions. It is not the source of the Helsinki study’s findings.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the results can—and cannot—tell you about an individual dog
The study describes group differences in its tested sample; it does not predict how any particular dog will perform or behave. The participating dogs were a selected group: they had taken part in smartDOG testing, needed to be interested in working for food, and could not be overly aggressive toward people. The analysis included breeds with at least 40 tested dogs.
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Breed comparisons can help describe tendencies in particular tasks, but they do not replace getting to know an individual dog. Even within a breed, ability and behavior vary, and the study’s authors note that results from earlier breed research have sometimes been contradictory.
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How to read “smartest breed” claims
- Ask what the ranking measures: obedience and working performance, social cues, problem-solving, memory, or something else.
- Check whether the source tested a specific set of tasks or actually produced a justified overall score.
- Look at which dogs were included and how many were tested in each breed.
- Treat a breed-level result as a group comparison, not a guarantee about an individual dog.
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