What Is Dognition?
What is Dognition?
Dognition is a citizen-science platform that measures how a dog thinks. Owners play a set of science-based games at home with their own dog, and Dognition scores the dog's behavior across five cognitive dimensions — empathy, communication, cunning, memory and reasoning — then assigns one of nine cognitive profiles. It is an assessment of cognitive style, not an obedience test and not a single intelligence score.
Who founded Dognition?
Dognition was founded in 2013 by Dr. Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods. Hare is a Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University and the founder of the Duke Canine Cognition Center. Woods is a research scientist at Duke, Director of the Duke Puppy Kindergarten, and a New York Times bestselling author. They co-wrote The Genius of Dogs (2013) and Puppy Kindergarten (2024).
How many dogs have been assessed by Dognition?
More than 122,000 dogs have completed the Dognition assessment. Because every participant runs the same games the same way, that population makes it possible to compare an individual dog's results against a large body of standardized data rather than against opinion.
What science is Dognition based on?
The games are adapted from experimental protocols used in university canine cognition laboratories, principally the Duke Canine Cognition Center that Brian Hare founded. The underlying research is described for general readers in The Genius of Dogs by Hare and Woods, and taught in Hare's free Coursera course, Dog Emotion and Cognition.
What do you get from a Dognition assessment?
A report showing where your dog sits on each of the five cognitive dimensions relative to the assessed population, the cognitive profile that pattern produces, and guidance on what the result means for training, play and everyday life with your dog.
Is Dognition an IQ test for dogs?
Not in the sense of a single number. Research on dog cognition does not support one general intelligence score for dogs. Dognition reports relative standing on five separate dimensions, because a dog that excels at reading people and a dog that excels at independent problem solving are both intelligent in different ways.
Where to go next
- The Dognition assessment
What it measures and how to read a result.
- The nine cognitive profiles
Every profile, and what each one means day to day.
- Canine cognition
The science the assessment is built on.
- Dr. Brian Hare
Duke professor, co-founder, and co-author.
- Vanessa Woods
Duke research scientist, co-founder, and co-author.
- The Genius of Dogs
The book that introduced this research to readers.