There are many dog people and Cat People in this world, and everyone has their own opinion over which is the most intelligent. Cat people believe their animals to be God-like creatures with legendary smarts, while dog people just know that Buster is the cleverest of them all.

To settle the long-standing argument, scientists have now gone on to prove that Dogs are, in fact, the most intelligent of the two popular pets. Dog owners will now be heard to say in unison, “There! You see? Told you so!”

Research on cat and dog intelligence

According to Cosmos Magazine, research was run by Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a biological scientist with the Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

She was keen to know which of the two pets were the smartest. But, just to keep thing interesting, she also made comparisons to other critters, including raccoons, ferrets, lions, hyenas, mongeese (or mongooses, if that is your preference), and brown bears.

The way the research scientists performed this feat was to count the neurons in the animals’ cerebral cortex – an area of the brain that indicates higher brain function. Apparently, the more neurons you have, the more intelligent you are. The whole crux of the research was actually to find out if carnivores’ brains are more developed than those of herbivores – but that is off subject. We’re only interested in canines and felines in this story.

It’s official – dogs win the intelligence race

The results showed that cats have 250 million Cortical Neurons – an impressive figure indeed until you find out that dogs more than double that, at a whopping 530 million.

It seems the woofers definitely win that argument. According to Herculano-Houzel, their findings show that dogs are biologically capable of doing far more flexible and complex things than their feline friends. You know, like saving people’s lives, calming those in stress, fetching the ball – that kind of stuff which cats wouldn’t even deign to try.

What was previously thought of as being boredom and disdain on the part of the haughty cat, could possibly just mean they don’t have the capability to do what you are asking of them. Apologies to cat people, but hey, this is science we are talking about! Oh, and bears have the same as cats, so despite their size, they are pretty dumb too.

In case anyone is worried about the incredible 530 million cortical neurons in Fido’s brain, fear not. According to a report by Vice, we humans have 16 billion of the darn things, meaning there is no chance of our dog friends taking over the world in a “Planet of the Apes” scenario.