Bud’s A Smart Little Dude, According To A Cat IQ Test

Is your cat a genius or not the sharpest claw on the paw? The University of Maine’s Cat Lab wants your help as researchers seek to measure feline intelligence.

Buddy apparently has brawn and brains, according to a “cat IQ test” by researchers at the University of Maine.

The test is a survey designed by the people who work at the university’s Cat Lab, and it aims to employ some of the same techniques used to measure the intelligence of young children and dogs.

The test asks questions about memory, how closely felines read nonverbal cues from their humans, how attuned they are to human emotions, whether they’ve learned tricks, and whether they’ve improvised solutions to obstacles they’ve encountered.

I gave each question serious thought and tried to eliminate my own bias to the best of my ability.

“This is your brain on catnip. Any questions?”

For example, there’s absolutely no question Buddy is extremely communicative, curious, bold and friendly. He’s also figured out things on his own, like how to open doors and how to best manipulate me for as much food as possible. I’ll never forget watching with fascination when, as a kitten, he figured out how to wedge his body against the frame of my bedroom door with his feet while using his front paws to turn the handle.

On the other hand, he’s a hilariously inept hunter, he’s done some spectacularly dumb things, and he went through a whole phase in which he “boxed” the cat in the mirror before figuring out it was a reflection of himself.

I can still hear the “THWAP THWAP THWAP!” of his little kitty paws against the glass and his accompanying trills as he did battle with himself. To be fair, that was also in kittenhood, and he eventually figured out there was no other cat.

As I’ve detailed in this blog previously, Bud also seems to possess the precision of an atomic clock when it comes to meal times, and if I so much as shift in my chair as meal time approaches, he springs up and trills at me like “Are we going to the kitchen? Come on, dude, it’s Food O’clock! I want turkey, beef or tuna!”

According to the survey, Buddy has an IQ of 64 on a max-70 scale, good enough for the “Felix Forecaster” tier and just below “The McGonagall Mastermind.”

It’s probably for the best that he’s not in that very top tier anyway. We’re talking about a cat intelligent enough to understand I hate the sound of the flap on his litter box squeaking on its hinges, and has subsequently weaponized it to get me out of bed. If he gets any smarter, I’ll probably wake up to a machine that slaps me every time I hit the snooze button.

You can take the survey on behalf of your own cat(s) here. Don’t forget to share your results!

22 thoughts on “Bud’s A Smart Little Dude, According To A Cat IQ Test”

  1. 33, but that doesn’t surprise me. Except for the fact that she might have been a great birder (I caught her with a large bird in her mouth before I brought her inside) and could cry up a storm when she wanted to eat, she didn’t play with toys, she was quite laid back, which perhaps isn’t the highest of intelligence. But, what do I know?  I’m just a human, unqualified to judge another species’ intelligence. Your cat is of superior intelligence. I love hearing about the 2 of you!

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    1. You’re right, we’re unqualified to judge the intelligence of other species. They have very different priorities formed by different evolutionary paths, so what we think of as “dumb” is likely just ambivalence toward things that we think are a big deal, but are nonsense to them.

      Cats might think we’re a bit slow too because we can’t fluently read tail and whisker, let alone pheromones, so they have to communicate the way we do, by making weird sounds with our mouths.

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      2. Yup, they must think we’re big dummies. I like to think Bud and I understand each other well, and for the most part we do, but there are still times when he’s urgently meowing at me and I can’t figure out what we wants.

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  4. Boss got a 64, but I think his score would have been perfect if I hadn’t marked him low on the “learning games” part due to the fact we hadn’t tried to teach him games. However I should have considered that he did learn to jump up to my lap when I signaled him to, then not to jump up when I had a home iv 24/7 for awhile, and then again to jump up on signal after the IV was removed. He’s scary smart.

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    1. I wouldn’t be surprised if he understands the IV was for your health. They know so much more than we give them credit for, and they’re especially well-attuned to our health.

      It’s not for the selfish reasons people would attribute to them either, at least in my experience.

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      1. Oh WOW, those photos are beautiful, that literally made my morning to see these- Bella is fast asleep in one of her favourite napping spots and definitely has the look of a mini panther-!!! we sponsor a black leopard called maya – she became famous when she was rescued and appeared in a TV programme called “big cats in thge house” the sanctuary she lives in is huge and not publicly accessible in normal circumstances (still not real freedom) and we have stayed there close to her which is an experience like no other – it’s amazing but nothing like the wild really https://thebigcatsanctuary.org/cats/maya/

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      2. That looks awesome! I saw something like that somewhere else, can’t remember the place but it was very similar in that you would stay in a lodge with a direct view of an enclosure and could shoot photos to your heart’s content.

        That must have been like Christmas for cat people like you and your wife. It’s a great idea to have big cats who can’t be released into the wild serve as “ambassadors” for their species and help raise money for conservation.

        Maya is a beautiful jaguar! It must be difficult to make a choice between her, a tiger, a lion, a cheetah, a snow leopard and a puma.

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  7. Somehow this got lost in Spam. I will have to see how the cats do. (I’m thinking that we have at least one who falls into the Dreamer category. Sgt Stripes is the clock-watcher in our group. He knows exactly when treat time is at night.

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    1. The good Sergeant appears to be the leader of your pride, with leadership skills no doubt bolstered by his time in the military. Can I send Bud over for some discipline and maybe a boot camp?

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    1. He’s in good company with Bud in the Felix tier.

      I never would have dreamed of trying to train Bud until I happened on a YouTube video one day of this guy who goes by CatManToo, who is a professional dog trainer. He adopted a cat and taught her how to ride a skateboard and do all these crazy tricks, but what convinced me was a video in which he said he was cat sitting a friend’s older cat and planned to have him trained in come, sit, high five, etc in 2 weeks by the time his friend was back.

      I’m thinking “No way this is legit…” but he showed it step by step, and it looked so easy that I gave it a shot.

      Lo and behold, it worked beautifully. The absolute best thing is having non-cat people over, and they always express skepticism when I say I’ve trained Bud. When that happens, I call him over, ask him to give me a high five…and the skeptics’ jaws drop.

      So yeah, I have no doubt your Tyler can learn.

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