Clever! But not in the same way as us. Dogs think less abstractly, but are extremely socially and situationally aware.

Take Chaser, a female Border Collie who mastered over 1,000 word concepts and could learn new objects through a process of elimination – a skill otherwise attributed to children of around 3 years of age.

Or Rico, also a Border Collie, from Germany: he could not only name toys, but also understood simple grammar-like structures such as "bring the ball to the blanket." This even earned him an appearance on the German TV show "Wetten, dass..?"

And dogs read us better than we might think. Sofia, a research dog from Vienna, reliably chose the correct food container when she trusted the person pointing to it – even when her own nose suggested something different.

We always knew it: dogs are masters at understanding us. That is perhaps the most intelligent form of intelligence. And above all, the reason why we love them so much.