A BARKING brain box is set to wow TV viewers with his intellectual antics.

Qannik the super-smart samoyed will be one of the stars on BBC1’s Bang Goes the Theory at 7.30pm on Monday.

Qannik – which means snowflake in the Eskimo language – was one of four dogs chosen to undergo scientific tests to measure their canine cleverness.

The Bang Goes the Theory team tested to see if dogs could differentiate between groups of rubber ducks.

Peter Wilkinson, 42, of Rayleigh Drive, Leigh, who is the proud owner of the five-year-old dog, explained: “The dogs had to pick out quantities of rubber ducks so they were asked to go to one duck or, say, three ducks. Qannik did pretty well and only got one test wrong out of ten.”

He remained tight-lipped about which dog came out top in the recorded show, but added: “Qannik is very bright and is trained to do 150 different tricks, including hiding his eyes, limping and cocking his leg on demand. He can also skateboard and pull a sledge at up to 25mph!

“There were 16 dogs, whittled down to Qannik, a border collie, a Jack Russell and German shepherd. The tests were carried out at Lincolnshire University. It is not the first taste of stardom for Qannik, who already has an impressive TV pedigree.

He appeared on BBC1 in Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Over the Rainbow in 2010 – a talent show to find a Dorothy and Toto to perform in the Wizard of Oz musical in London’s West End.

Qannik also made an appearance on Blue Peter with Barney the Blue Peter Dog, in February 2011, and he has also featured on front cover of Dogs Today magazine.

He has an older half-brother, Keido, and the pair can often be seen training around the Southend area. The samoyed breed originally comes from Siberia and is a companion dog for a nomadic tribe.