Clever dog

It is a question that divides the country more deeply even than Brexit: which are the more intelligent, cats or dogs? Scientists claim to have resolved this conundrum in favour of dogs. They have reached their conclusion by counting the neurons in the cerebral cortex of the two animals. Dogs, it transpires, have about 530 million cortical neurons while cats have about 250 million. Does this make dogs cleverer? While they work and are at their owner’s beck and call, cats sleep in the warmth and are fed and watered for doing nothing very much. “He will kill mice and he will be kind to Babies when he is in the house... But he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him,” said Kipling. Which of the two gets the better deal? In any case, humans have 16 billion cortical neurons and that does not guarantee intelligence.