Here’s the confession – I decided to do a survey asking ‘how intelligent is your pet‘ because one of my dogs (Pippa, a rescue we’ve had for almost 2 years), really seems a bit dim sometimes!  She’s smart enough to be trainable and is very obedient and eager to please – but there are some things she just doesn’t pick up on, no matter how often they’re repeated.  It really got me wondering, and so this experiment was born!

Pippa

In the end I checked 143 animals.  If you’re a regular participant in my survey’s, you know that I make an energetic connection to the photo and name sent to me, then ask my question using a powerful pendulum. 

(You can read more of my pendulum surveys here.)

In this case, I asked for the intelligence of the animal on a scale from 0-5.

Roughly 1/3 of the animals I surveyed this time were cats (33%), 1/3 dogs (30%), and 1/3 horses (34%).  There were also 2 birds (a cockatiel and a chicken), 1 mule, and 2 rabbits.

Overall, 95% of the animals surveyed scored 3-5 which I thought was pretty impressive!  In other words, only 5% had below average intelligence.  (I’m not sure humans would fare so well?!)

When we look at the stats for each species, it gets more interesting – though possibly not a surprise.

DOGS

• 89% of dogs scored 3-5.
• 8% scored a 2/5, and 3% scored 1/5.  (My lovely Pippa was a 2.)

CATS

• 95% of cats scored 3-5 on the intelligence scale
• the remaining 5% scored 2/5.

HORSES

• 100% of horses scored 3-5

OTHER SPECIES

For the ‘others’ the stats are obviously not definitive, but interesting nonetheless:

• Chicken – 4/5
• Cockatiel – 3/5
• Rabbit 1 – 4/5
• Rabbit 2 – 2/5
• Mule – 3/5

The Conclusion?

What does it mean?  Well, I guess we’d have to conclude that over all, horses are most intelligent, since none of the sample scored below average.

However, when we look at it from a different angle…

Number of each species that scored 5/5 on the intelligence scale (the overall average was 34%):

• Horses – 24% (below average)
• Dogs – 32% (also slightly below the average)
• Cats – 40%

Which makes horses the LEAST intelligent.

Number of each species that scored 4/5 (the overall average being 38%):

• Dogs – 24% – below average
• Cats – 40%
• Horses – 46%

Number of each species that scored 3/5 (with the overall average being 23%)

• Cats – 14%
• Horses – 30%
• Dogs – 32%

Dogs were the only category that scored a 1/5 (none scored a zero).

I guess my conclusion would be that dogs have fairly average intelligence overall, horses have medium to high intelligence, and cats have high intelligence!

What’s your experience?

Keep connecting with your animals!

Trisha x

If you’re interested in reading more of the stats I’ve gathered in the course of my animal communication sessions with horses, grab yourself my free pdf, ‘What Horses Say‘, when you sign up for my newsletter.

Read my previous pendulum experiments, on how we affect our animals, the past lives of horses, and whether horses like being ridden.

Interested in learning how to use a pendulum with your horse? Check out my Video Workshop.

About Trisha

Trisha Wren has been an equine professional for most of her adult life.  She rode, competed, and taught Western Riding for 15 years in Scotland, then horse and rider bio-mechanics in New Zealand and Australia for 10 years.  She’s been a full time horse and animal communicator since April 2016. Find out more about Trisha here and sign up for her self paced Animal Communication course here.

Trisha with Levi and Pippa