Here I go again, sticking my neck out there! The thread responses so far have completely misunderstood the research conducted.
The bulldog was listed as #108 out of 110 dog breeds in the canine intelligence ranking published by Stanley Coren in his book The Intelligence of Dogs. No, Dr. Coren doesn't own a bulldog and he doesn't own a Border Collie either. Dr. Coren is a neuropsychologist. His ranking was based on scientific research methods and not emotional attachment.
Dr. Coren presented in his book that there are 3 types of canine intelligence.
1) instinctive intelligence - is bred into the dog in it's domestication history. A retriever, for instance, is bred to retrieve something. This trait became enhanced in the breed by selective breeding. Therefore, a labrador retriever breed will always be more intelligent than a bulldog at fetching something. A bichon frise was bred to be pretty and that's about it, so it doesn't really have much instinctive intelligence.
2) Adaptive intelligence is not breed specific. This is a particular dog's learning and adaptation. For example - all labradors have the same instinctive intelligence and will fetch a ball - but you will find that some labradors, when they see the ball roll under the couch will think the ball gone and return to his parent without it, whereas some labradors will go behind the couch and catch the ball as it comes out the other side. My very first companion was a purebred German Shepherd. Ranked 3rd on the Intelligence ranking. Super smart dog - she is show quality on obedience! But, when she gets her leash wrapped around a tree trunk, she is stuck, because, even after I showed her multiple times how to unwrap herself, she just never learned it. My 2nd dog was a Lhasa Apso. Ranked #68. Never had a problem unwrapping himself out of the tree... Because, unwrapping a leash out of a tree is not instinctive and cannot be breed specific - it's adaptive learning that varies for each individual dog.
3) Working intelligence - this is what "the ranking" is based on. Because it is the only type of intelligence that can be compared by breed. Working intelligence is susceptibility to obedience training (command and reward). This study gives researchers a starting point in choosing the best breed to do human assistance work such as guide dogs for the blind or police dogs. Although each individual dog, regardless of breed, can have different levels of obedience depending on the trainer, the study was conducted on the ease and consistency of obedience training. Therefore, a Border Collie is ranked #1, because all dog trainers who joined the study named the Border Collie as the breed that required the least number of command repititions to learn a new command and the breed that recalls that command at first issue (only has to say the command once for the dog to obey) 95% of the time or better. So, if you are a trainer for guide dogs and you have 2 pupies to choose from - a German Shepherd and a Bulldog, you will not choose the bulldog, guaranteed.
It is no surprise to us bullie lovers that the English Bulldog is ranked 108. My Bullie knows all the basic commands but, she obeys them, I'd say less than 20% of the time at first issue and only if there's a treat involved. And I'm fairly certain it took several reiterations for her to even just learn them in the first place (I got her at 3 years old). My bichon, for sure, took days just to learn "Stay", but he's consistent on it now with no more than the 3rd issue, usually obeys at first command issue. My German Shepherd is like a robot - I don't even have to say the command, he can anticipate "Sit" before it is issued. And she learned each command very fast - Sit was a 5 minute session.
So, is my English Bulldog dumber than my German Shepherd? Depends on what your personal criteria of what you consider intelligent. Stanley Coren's criteria is for a specific type of intelligence for a specific purpose and has its specific uses. In my opinion, Bullie the bulldog, is just as smart as Megabyte, the Shepherd, because they both figured out how to become a value addition to my eccentric lifestyle. They both got ME trained.
nuff said.
