Belgian Malinois is the best choice for brains as it is said to be the smartest dog in the world

The Belgian Malinois was found to be the smartest dog in a study of 13 different breeds.

Scientists evaluated 1,000 dogs by giving them seven cognitive and three behavioral tasks.

Tests included their ability to read human gestures and whether the animals could make a detour over a transparent V-shaped fence to access a food reward they could see. The researchers also looked at how independent a dog was and how quickly it would come to a human for help by giving it an impossible task — trying to get food in a sealed box.

The Belgian Malinois has been found to be the smartest dog out of 13 different breeds

The pictured Malinois, who are often used as police dogs or guard dogs, took first place with 35 out of 39 points. Border Collies placed second with 26 points, while the Hovawart — a German breed — placed third with 25 points.

dr Katriina Tiira, from the University of Helsinki in Finland, told The Sunday Telegraph: “Belgian Malinois excelled on many of the cognitive tasks and scored very well on most tests.”

Saara Junttila, study co-author and PhD researcher in the field of canine cognition at the University of Helsinki, added: “Most breeds had their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Labrador Retriever was very good at reading human gestures but not so good at solving spatial problems. Some breeds, like the Shetland Sheepdog, scored fairly evenly on almost all tests.’

The dogs selected had to have an interest in working for the food and not be overly aggressive towards humans. The researchers selected pets between the ages of one and eight years because cognitive traits may not be fully developed in younger dogs, while cognitive decline may occur in older dogs.

They underwent smartDOG testing between March 2016 and February 2022.

Scientists evaluated 1,000 dogs by giving them seven cognitive and three behavioral tasks (file image)

During the tests, the dog was shown two food bowls. One was empty, the other had food in it but was covered. The idea was to see if the animal could find the food in the other bowl.

The team said this test was the best measure of overall intelligence, but the data showed there was no difference between dog breeds for this task.

However, three tasks, each testing a specific aspect of canine cognition, showed how the breeds differed.

One was a V-diversion task – where the dog had to go around a transparent V-shaped fence to get to a food reward they could see. The aim was to measure the ability to solve problems.

The team measured the dogs’ ability to read gestures by getting them to respond to five human movements: constant pointing, short pointing, foot pointing, pointing while looking in a different direction, and a glance follow.

The researchers also looked at how independent a dog was and how quickly it came to the rescue of a human by giving them an unsolvable task. They were asked to try to get groceries in a sealed box.