How Smart Are Border Collies? Vet-Verified Facts & FAQ
Border Collies are known for their striking black and white coats as well as for their shepherding skills. They are loving companions with a very strong work ethic—a Border Collie without a job to do is an unhappy dog!
You’ve likely heard that Borders are smart, but perhaps you’re wondering just how smart they are. They are consistently ranked among the most intelligent dog breeds in terms of learning ability and working intelligence.
If you’d like to learn more, we’ll discuss just how intelligent these dogs are and how they are smart in more than one way.
Research Tells Us the Border Collie Is Intelligent
Most of the attention on Borders for their smarts comes from Dr. Stanley Coren, Ph.D., neuropsychological researcher and canine expert.1 Dr. Coren wrote The Intelligence of Dogs, where he analyzed survey responses from hundreds of dog obedience trial judges regarding working and obedience intelligence.
Border Collies consistently ranked at the top of these assessments. A key factor in the rankings was how quickly dogs learned new commands, with higher-ranking breeds typically learning in fewer than five repetitions. Another factor was obedience reliability, or how often dogs responded correctly to known commands.
Border Collies stood out for their exceptional trainability and consistency, which is why they are often ranked at the top of Coren’s intelligence hierarchy for working and obedience intelligence.
The Top 10 Brightest Dogs
Now that you know the Border Collie came in at number one, we’ll cover the entire top 10 smartest dog breeds according to Dr. Coren because we’re assuming you’re curious:
These dogs consistently obeyed commands and understood new commands in less than five repetitions.
How Does the Average Dog Stack Up?
Out of 138 dog breeds evaluated, the Border Collie ranked number one in working and obedience intelligence according to research by Stanley Coren. Coren proposed that canine intelligence is influenced by both genetics and environment. He emphasized that both inherited traits and life experience contribute significantly to behavior and trainability.
He identified three types of canine intelligence: instinctive intelligence, adaptive intelligence, and working and obedience intelligence. His ranking system primarily measured working and obedience intelligence, since it reflects trainability in a human context.
What this means is that a dog’s intelligence depends on many factors, including breed tendencies, individual temperament, training, and environment. In Coren’s obedience-based studies, the average dog typically learns a new command in about 25 to 40 repetitions and obeys a known command on the first attempt about 50% of the time. By comparison, the Border Collie learns new commands in fewer than five repetitions and shows a much higher first command obedience rate, which is why it ranks at the top of that specific scale.
This is nothing against average dogs. They are all smart in their own way. Remember, this is in comparison to a dog that has an intensely strong work ethic. Other dogs will demonstrate intelligence in different ways.
Other Ways the Border Collie Is Smart
So, now you know that Border Collies excel in the working/obedience aspect of intelligence, but what about the other two – instinctive and adaptive? These dimensions are much more difficult to measure, but they are an important aspect of canine intelligence.
Instinctive Intelligence
Instinctive intelligence refers to a dog's natural or inborn traits that were bred into them. Most dog breeds were bred by humans with specific jobs in mind, and the Border was bred to be a sheepdog.
Well, it should come as no surprise that the Border Collie clearly excels as a sheepdog. In many circles, they are widely acknowledged to be the world’s best sheepdogs. But they are also more than capable of herding cattle as well.
If you’ve ever seen the Border in action when herding sheep (and if you’ve ever seen the movie Babe, you have), you can see how incredible they are at herding. Their instinctive intelligence in how they round up the sheep and move them in formation toward a specified direction is unquestionably incredible! Their ability to manage flocks with minimal human input comes from a combination of training and strong inherited herding instincts.
Even Border Collies that have never worked with livestock may still show herding-related behaviors, such as stalking, circling, or attempting to control movement. However, these instincts vary significantly between individuals, and not every Border Collie will naturally herd without training. Behaviors like nipping at heels can occur in some dogs, but it is not a universal trait.
We can all agree that the Border Collie rates very high in instinctive intelligence! It's just never been measured.
Adaptive Intelligence
Adaptive intelligence refers to any dog's ability to learn through problem-solving and social skills on their own. If a dog is skilled at finding hidden treats or can figure out how you are feeling by your facial expression, this is a sign of adaptive intelligence and cognitive skills.
This is the type of intelligence that varies significantly from dog to dog, and this includes the Border Collie. Many Border owners will tell you that their dog has very high adaptive intelligence.
But because this particular form of intelligence is highly individual and context-dependent, it is not easily ranked in a standardized way like obedience intelligence. However, it can still be studied and tested through problem-solving and learning experiments. While the Border Collie often performs very well in such tasks, this can vary from one individual to another, so it can’t be stated with absolute certainty for every dog.
The Smartest Dog in the World
Not only are Border Collies considered one of the smartest breeds, but one of the smartest dogs is also a Border Collie.
A Border Collie living in the United States by the name of Chaser was named the smartest dog in the world. She lived until she was 15 but died in 2019. What made her so intelligent was her ability to learn and identify 1,022 nouns—which turned out to be over a thousand toys that she could locate and retrieve!
Her owner, Dr. John Pilley, worked on teaching her that words could refer to specific objects, primarily toys.
She began to learn the names of things as well as identify them by adjectives. For example, Dr. Pilley taught her to pick out a blue ball, and after some time, he could provide her with multiple balls and have her identify them as being smaller or bigger.
Dr. Pilley did everything with positive reinforcement and with the concept that dogs shouldn’t be forced to do anything. He believed that Chaser should have joy in everything she did.
Final Thoughts
The Border Collie is an amazing animal! And they are also amazing companions! But they are not for everyone. With their boundless energy and strong drive to work, they need owners who give them that necessary job and can keep up with their exercise and mental stimulation needs.
People looking for a quiet and cuddly dog that doesn’t need a lot of exercise need not apply. But outdoorsy, energetic people who will appreciate this breed's intelligence will not regret bringing home one of these incredible dogs!
See also:
Sources
Featured Image Credit: Anaite, Shutterstock
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Kathryn was a librarian in a previous lifetime and is currently a writer about all things pets. When she was a kid, she hoped to work in a zoo or with wildlife in some way, thanks to her love for animals. Unfortunately, she's not strong in the sciences, so she fills her days with researching and writing about all kinds of animals and spends time playing with her adorable but terribly naughty tabby cat, Bella. Kathryn is hoping to add to her family in the near future – maybe another cat or two and a dog.
