Test your dog or cat’s IQ using these simple tricks
Popular Science...
If you’ve spent any time on TikTok lately, you’ve probably seen the smart dog wall test. Someone scoops up their dog (or cat!), carries them face-first toward a wall, and the internet decides whether the pet is smart or not based on whether it sticks its paw out.
A five-second intelligence test you can do in your living room sounds cool. The problem, according to the researchers who actually study animal cognition, is that it doesn’t measure intelligence at all.
It’s a reflex, not a sign of intelligence
Dr. Murat Sırrı Akosman, a veterinary medicine professor at Afyon Kocatepe University in Turkey, recently published a letter in The Journal of Small Animal Practice calling out the TikTok trend for creating confusion.
“As veterinary professionals, it is our duty to clarify that this maneuver is not a measure of canine cognition but is, in fact, a fundamental neurological assessment known as the visual and tactile placing test,” Akosman writes.
When your dog reaches out toward the wall, that’s an automatic reflex—like when a doctor taps your knee and your leg jerks forward. Vets use it to check if a dog’s nervous system is working properly, he explains.
If your dog “fails” the test, it may be an early warning sign of serious nervous system issues, says Akosman, and you would do well to book a vet visit. (But don’t panic: If they react on the second or third try, it’s likely that they were distracted to begin with, or you moved too fast and it messed with their sense of balance.)
“The wall test is not a valid measure of a cat or dog’s intelligence,” agrees Dr. Gitanjali (Gita) Gnanadesikan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Social Cognition and Primate Behavior Lab at Emory University.
And while some pet owners see the wall test as a fun trend, pets might not feel the same way. “It’s worth noting that most cats and dogs don’t like being held like this!” Gnanadesikan notes.
“I think the wall test is a very ill-advised and potentially harmful way of treating an animal,” says Dr. Juliane Kaminski, director of the Dog Cognition Centre at the University of Portsmouth. “I would never encourage dog owners (or any pet owner) to do that to their pet.”
“It’s not possible to put a single number on intelligence”
The idea that you could rate a pet’s intelligence through a single test is flawed, experts say.
“The term intelligence is very broad,” says Dr. Shany Dror, a postdoctoral researcher at the Clever Dog Lab at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna. What scientists find more valuable is examining specific cognitive (i.e. thinking) abilities—such as physical problem-solving, spatial navigation, and social awareness—using different tests.
Pets who excel at solving physical problems, like figuring out how to open a door, have very good physical cognition, explains Dror.
Others have very good spatial cognition, which means that they are very good at orienting themselves in space and may, for example, always know how to come back home.
And “some animals have exceptionally good social cognition and can easily interpret social interactions and react accordingly,” Dror says.
Gnanadesikan’s own research shows how pet intelligence is really nuanced. “The dogs who have good memories are not necessarily the dogs who have good problem-solving abilities,” she says.
“Instead of having genius dogs that perform well on everything, we find that some dogs do better at some things and others at others. Which also means that it’s not possible to put a single number on intelligence.”
What to try instead
If you actually want to learn something about how your dog thinks, there are far better options than the wall test.
Kaminski suggests a simple cup game “that is actually fun for dogs and can at the same time potentially tell you something about your dog’s thought process” works.
Try this simple cup game: Place two identical, non-transparent cups in front of your dog, then hide a treat under one of them while your dog isn’t looking. Once the cups are set, use a pointed finger or a deliberate gaze to signal which cup conceals the food—then let your dog choose. Getting it right depends entirely on them reading you, which is what makes it such a revealing test of social cognition. It also builds impulse control, since they have to hold back and wait for your cue before making a move.
Another test you can try at home involves placing unequal numbers of treats on two identical plates and seeing how close the quantities need to get before your dog stops reliably picking the larger pile. “Usually dogs are quite good as long as the maximum number of pieces on one tray does not go beyond 15—from then on, it becomes hard,” Kaminski notes.
If your dog seems disengaged, resist the urge to draw conclusions—they might simply lack motivation. “Just like us, they have to be motivated to learn something,” Dror cautions. “If you’re trying to teach your dog something new and they’re not interested in what you have to offer, it’s not them that’s failing the test, it’s you.”
What about cats?
Compared to dogs, researchers know far less about the thinking abilities of cats, “because cats are a lot harder to study, which I’m sure surprises absolutely no one,” Gnanadesikan jokes.
But the same principle applies: Cat intelligence is far more nuanced than a number on a scale, she says.
I can personally attest to this. One of my cats doesn’t pick up social cues very well, but he’s an expert at opening doors, including kitchen cupboards—low social cognition, high physical cognition.
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