I currently own a pug who is much brighter than any of the golden retrievers I have owned.  We have to spell out words around our pug such as hungry, leash, or outside.  She also fetches her leash on command, growls on command, sits, stays, fetches a toy by name ect...  Pugs really are people pleasers and are very interested in their owners.  Does that really make them bright?  I don't know, but ours is certainly easy to train and communicate with.