The Dumbest Cat Breed In The World

Evaluating feline intelligence might sound like a ridiculous idea, especially when you consider that, according to Canadian researchers, the IQ test, which many people see as the gold standard for measuring human intelligence, "is not a valid way of assessing brainpower." Fortunately, the human race has devised fail-proof ways to test cat intelligence. For instance, any mildly intelligent human would know that when you see the text 'HAT,' the first letter is pronounced like an English N in Cyrillic. Meanwhile, the Cyrillic equivalent of the letter H actually looks like an English X. A cat, however, wouldn't know that and is therefore stupid. Humans know this for a fact because if cats could read either alphabet, they would have said so by now.

Now, some of you might be thinking, "You can't define someone's intelligence in terms of a language they might never have learned. And didn't you just imply that humans aren't good at measuring other humans' intelligence?" Well, sorry, but standards are standards, and if you don't meet this completely non-arbitrary standard, then your brain is definitely made of rocks and those rocks definitely aren't sharp. Now that that's settled, let's get back to brain-shaming cats.

Even though cats suck at Russian-to-English transliteration, there are other ways to measure their un-intelligence. Veterinarian Dr. Marty Becker explains, "For rankings of intelligence by cat breed," people primarily base their assessments on "the interest a cat has in interacting with us and doing what we want." So what's the dumbest cat breed?

In an interview with Pet MD celebrity vet Jeff Werber acknowledged, "We don't really know how to evaluate cat intelligence." Even so, Pet MD suggests that trainability, sociability, and the ability to follow the daily routines you create for your cat can serve as diagnostics for intelligence. Dr. Marty Becker writes that the cat breeds least interested in interacting with humans and following orders are typically considered the least intelligent. Based on that brilliant reasoning, people tend to list Persians and Himalayans as being on the dumber end of the cat spectrum.

But cats might not think too highly of people, either. After 30 years of studying feline behavior, anthrozoologist John Bradshaw concluded, "Cats think you're just a a slightly big, dumb non-hostile cat" because you can't hunt or land on your feet like they do. But that would be dumb way to measure human intelligence. After all, people aren't cats.