Einstein: 

Extremely effective but only in a limited capacity. He can tell us when he needs to go outside, when he wants food, when he wants water and when he wants attention. Four basic needs, all easy to understand.

Elliott: 

While he is still barely talking, the kid is exceptionally talented at letting us know what he wants/needs. When he's thirsty, he will run to the refrigerator and bang on it. When he's hungry he will run to his high chair and claw at it. When he wants to read a book, he brings one to us. When he's tired, he rubs his eyes and turns into something resembling the demon baby that manifests itself at the end of The Incredibles. When he wants to watch the Muppets, he runs up to us, holding a Muppets DVD and, in an incredibly pathetic display, cries "Mup-pah!" Mup-pah!" over and over. 

Nod to Elliott here but only recently.

Tough to tell. He knows a handful of tricks but is also smart enough to know that, with the amount of crap he has to put up with now from Elliott, he doesn't really have to jump through hoops anymore to get a treat. Einstein does score big points in this category, however, for learning the phrase "All done" before Elliott. When we were trying to incorporate that into Elliott's signs and phrases following meal time, it only took Einstein about a week or two to know that when we said "All done", it meant we were about to get Elliott out of his high chair, which meant it was his new favorite time of the day since he got to scavenge for dropped sweet potato pancakes and blueberries.

Shelbi and I are both equally petrified by the fact that Elliott probably understands FAR more than we even give him credit for. He has great short term memory. When we ask him where his milk is, he will run down the hall, remembering that he dropped it and it then proceeded to roll under his crib. He can point to various objects in books with a decent percentage of accuracy. He has about five animals noises as well although, frankly, his dog, cat, tiger, cow and sheep all sound vaguely constipated.

Another narrow victory for Elliott.

Even in his old age, the guy is the model of consistency. You can set your watch by when he will need to go out in the morning. And, when left alone for long periods of time, he has a steel trap for a bladder. He could be used in commercials for Doggie Flomax. Of course, he's only brilliant potty trained when he wants to be. When he's feeling neglected or, when it looks like it might be stormy outside and he might get his dainty paws wet, he'll just lift his leg by our front door.

Also extremely consistent. And, as another point in his favor, the sign in our house that says: "Elliott has gone __ days without peeing on anyone" is well into the triple digits. He is also very good at unintentionally alerting us when he needs to be changed. He will be in the middle of running around the house like a madman and, quite literally, drop whatever it is he's holding, bend his knees slightly, clench his fists and groan for a few seconds. There's not mistaking that.

Einstein in a landslide.

As smart as we believe Einstein to be, this is not his strong suit. This is a dog who will try and bury a bone in our love seat by clawing desperately at the cushion for 20 minutes straight. Also, if you put a laundry basket in between his usual route from the back door to his food dish, he's completely flummoxed and shows very little motivation to even try to find a different way around.

Practically since birth, Elliott's entire life has been spent trying to look at, touch and/or eat everything he sees. To this point, it's been a pretty frustrating 17 months. Even when he started walking there was a huge portion of his existence that was still off limits. The other day, he doubled his productivity. He discovered that he could get to twice as much by simply pushing our kitchen chairs around the house and then climbing up on them. To his delight this gave him access to our kitchen table, to 95% of our refrigerator magnets, to the window overlooking our backyard and to our computer where he has already renamed multiple folders and, somehow, accessed our hard drive where, I believe, he could have erased it with another click or two.

Elliott wins by a large amount

What our dog lacks in ingenuity and motivation, he more than makes up for in deviousness. He keeps mental notes throughout the course of an entire day of things we've dropped and will lie in wait for hours for his opportunity. Although his nails usually make him sound like Fred Astaire's spastic and uncoordinated brother is in our house, I swear Einstein has the ability to retract them into his body because I never hear him when he slinks back to our bedroom to thoroughly lick our pillows. (It's even more disgusting than it sounds.) 

Subtly is not really his strength yet. When he is racing toward our computer and I snatch him up, he will now point to the piano and say "Dada". Meaning: "Hey, I haven't heard you hack away on the piano for a while. That might be a treat for everyone. You just head over there and I'll hang out here. The fact that the computer is over here and you will be over there with your back turned has no bearing on my suggestion. I swear." Nice try chief. He does like to tease, however, by holding out a piece of food to the dog or a toy to us and then quickly snatching it back while shaking his head and laughing. 

No one is sneakier than Einstein. 

Up until the chair-moving incident, which is now a common occurrence throughout the day and has already resulted in a fairly spectacular fall, I would have called it a draw but, Elliott, at the age of 17.5 months officially passed our 10-year-old dog in intelligence. But, in a stinkyness battle, I think things are still too close to call.