Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.

The quip plays on a familiar stereotype: dogs are trainable and cooperative, while cats are independent and resistant to being directed. By calling cats “smarter,” the speaker defines intelligence not as obedience or usefulness to humans (e.g., pulling a sled) but as self-determination—refusing to be conscripted into labor. The joke also exposes how people often measure animal “smarts” by how well an animal serves human purposes. Its punchline flips that assumption: perhaps the very inability (or refusal) to be organized into a team for hard work is evidence of a different kind of intelligence.