Who knew that Rover had the IQ to beat out any quick-witted kitten? According to a new study conducted at Oxford University, the intelligence of dogs has evolved at a faster clip than the less social cat over millions of years.

It turns out that needy pups gain intelligence through their inherent sociability, while cats' quiet nature have left them with smaller craniums.

The findings accompany the first charting of the evolutionary history of the brain across different groups of mammals over 60 million years, reports the Telegraph. By examining over 500 species of living and fossilized mammals, the researchers discovered a link between the size of an animal's brain in relation to the remainder of the body and how socially active it is.

The study has defeated the belief that brains have grown relative to body size among all animal groups. Among the top brain-growing species are monkeys, horses, dolphins, camels and dogs — all "life of the party" mammals, in comparison to the "quiet type" (think cats, deer and rhinos).

This comes as good news for the potential intelligence of such other hyper-social animals as Miley Cyrus, Prince Harry and Erica Rose.