Are dogs smarter than horses?

These two species have been with us since the very beginning of our modern lives and further back than that. They’re human’s best friends. We’ve been training them, loving them, living with them and we developed a very strong bond with them that this question is bound to hurt us a little. Which are smarter: dogs or horses? First and foremost, there are certain innate differences between these two species. Dogs are originally hunting animals, while horses are herbivores and live in herds. Their behaviour and genetic inheritance is quite different. Measuring intelligence is a very tough job, even between one human and another, so how can we measure intelligence between two different species with different backgrounds and behaviours?

What are horses good at?

“If you judge a fish by his ability to climb a tree, it will live its life believing it is stupid”. Einstein was quite right in this, so we will just point out the things each species is really good at. Horses have developed emotional inteligence by living in herd structures. They can sense the pheromones someone gives out when he’s angry or stressed. One example is that of the horse Clever Hans who could answer numerical questions. He would tap the ground with his hoof eight, nine times, depending on the correct answer. Actually, it was his owner who cued him just that. Clever Hans was successfully reading his owner’s very subtle emotional cues.

What are dogs good at?

Dogs are believed to have the intelligence of a two year old human. They can learn an average of 150 human words. They are also up to little dirty tricks in order to get more treats. So, horses have a better emotional intelligence, while dogs have a better memory. Who wins? Does it really matter that much?