An Experiment to Prove That Dogs Are Smarter Than Infants

Now, it probably doesn't come as any surprise to anyone that your standard issue dog is smarter than an infant. Babies are notoriously dumb. Show a dog an electrical socket and it will look at it quizzically once and then roll over to have its belly scratched. Show one to an infant and he/she will find a metal hanger to stick in the hole--and then, worse, will eagerly do it again if given the chance. By ten months, most dogs are about as smart as they're going to be and will know what is and isn't food, but a ten month old baby can barely understand the concept of "pie," much less Pi.

Nonetheless, I decided to run a little experiment the other night with Norah. She was crawling into my office with some ring toys dangling from her mouth--which prompted in me the comparison to a dog. To test her cognitive ability versus a dog of a similar age, I conducted a "fetch" test--fetch being a game that dogs can master as early as six months after being born. Here are my results:

Clearly, the results of my test did not work out in Norah's favor. She was far more interested the cord to the vacuum cleaner that I broke earlier in the day by sucking up a booster seat strap (proving that I, myself, am probably STILL not much smarter than your run-of-the-mill dog).