Animal Intelligence, What have you observed?
Garden Mouser - Who says animals do not use tools.
A few days ago, after catching a mouse (such a good putty) my cat ran over and placed it into my Croc shoe. She then began toying with the poor mouse releasing & returning it to her Croc cage several times before it became a meal.
Not long ago, I first noticed the use of the Croc mouse cage when I responded to putty's loud meowing on the back porch. Putty was guarding her prisoner while impatiently waiting for us to come outside and praise her prowess. Then once she showed off her prize, in my shoe, she released the mouse and re-caught it for lunch. Good putty!
The first time I saw this, I questioned if it only were only an accident as the mouse unwittingly tried to hide but seeing her in action changed my mind.
Here is an interesting read on animal intelligence. https://www.lumosity.com/en/blog/the-many-forms-of-animal-intelligence
Comments
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Good girl show mom all the mice you get! Just don't leave one in there for mom to find - she may say some words to you!
We have a sheep that can open any gate/latch on the homestead. It may take her a few weeks to work out how it works but gets it every time.
New lock on gate - 2 weeks
Door with cross beam of wood on feed shed - 2 days
How to open the new totes with the side locks - 2 hours
Door to chicken coop - 3 days - still working on the new one (mom took an old piece of metal with a twist, hasn't mastered the twist - yet)
Van door has teeth mark - so we must be working on that.
We have done 10 different latch/lock on the fence gate and she gets everyone. I don't want to padlock (because I forget the key), but she opens them and lets everyone out.
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Oh my goodness, that sheep is a genius! What is her name?
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I was astounded to find out just how smart crows are. I knew they were smart and could count but I did know this:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2011.0957
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Crows and ravens are supposedly the smartest birds out there. They can use tools and speak human language in context. Magpies can speak also.
I have an African Grey parrot who also tests very high. A Grey frequently beat Harvard and MIT students in the Shell Game (A treat under a shell moved from position to position with other shells -- the classic con game.) The Grey has the intelligence of a human child between 5 and 8 years of age, depending on test performed. They also have the emotional maturity of a human 2 year old, so beware. She also speaks beautifully and keeps defeating cage locks.
Humans tend to underestimate the intelligence and emotional state of animals because it makes it easier to eat them. Someone made me think once by saying that domestic animals have the intelligence bred out of them. No insult intended to brilliant animals/birds of our acquaintance.
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My dog recently learned the word "Amazon".. unfortunately she thinks it is synonymous with "Squeaky tennis ball", or "Hey, see that person? they are bringing you more balls". sigh.
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Thank you for posting this article. Great read and makes me want to smile at and talk to crows.
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Beautiful cat Vicky Morris! We have two orange and white tabbies. We love them lots! What is his/her name?
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My chihuahua mix has been known to say "Oh, noooo" in an excitable moment. I don't know if she knows what she is saying.
My late cat, shortly before she died, actually said "mama."
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I have a really smart dog. When she was a pup she could open her kennel's top latch (which is why we now use both of them). She sometimes was able to open the bottom one as well. She has since stopped this behavior, but I am not entirely sure why. She now can jump over the baby gate (or knock it over) when my family is cooking (since it is a safety risk for her to be near the oven, we lock her in the sun room).
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I am sorry for the loss of your wonderful cat I understand how much she must have meant to you. Sometimes when our cat cannot find us she has a strange cry that sounds like helloooo.
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We named her Putputty, as a scrawny teenage cat, she found us and decided to stay 'put'. Of course, the free sardines didn't have anything to do with her decision.
Thank you for asking.
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We had some kids (goats) named Sandy and Dandy. They figured out very quickly that the human kids were on the bus and quickly learned the sound of it. As soon as the bus pulled up they ran to meet it with their little tails wagging. The kids (human) hated it because all the other riders called them the Goat Girls. Lol. As for how Sandy and Dandy got out everyday at the same time to meet the bus we never quite figured out.
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These animals definitely add joy to our lives (and sometimes aggravation, always work.)
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@Vicky Morris Thanks for your kind thoughts. It is obvious that you are an animal lover too.
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they are all a lot smarter than we are. for one thing, I doubt they assume we are stupid.
i have a rescue mouse (yeah, I know, it's strange. but so am I). That creature is amazing.
I'm not going to get started on how smart cats are, because i'll get booted off the forums for taking up too much space. For more information, read my book ... (that's a joke. I'm not advertising my book).
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@Ferg No disrespect to your mouse. I had pet mice as a kid and, also as an adult took in a sickly hairless rat that was being somewhat mistreated. That rat's last 6 months were pretty good.
BTW: I do not recommend hairless rats as desired pets as they don't have pretty hair AND they were bred for skin cancer research, so of course, they get skin cancer!
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@shllnzl I started my professional life as a molecular researcher. Those poor nude rats )-:
Rodents are really interesting; rats are probably more fun as pets because of their size, and their high intelligence. My rescue deer mouse is basically a spoiled wild critter; I talk to it but don't attempt to pick it up, prefering to let him hide in his hidey house while i'm cleaning his habitat (it comes apart (it's a cardboard creation), so he hides under the top part when I clean out the inside). I'm huge and I don't want to freak him out too much. He's getting old now, though, but I love to watch him scavenge for the food I leave in various places. Which he stores up, of course. I found a cherry next to his snuggle bed. Guess he really likes cherries.
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@Ferg One comment on my rat pet. (She had a growth, no doubt cancerous, yet behaved normally except for high thirst. Her original owners had her in a gerbil cage and pulled her water bottle at night because she made too much noise drinking.) Anyway, occasionally she would squeak loudly and lay down outside her cardboard sleeping area. It was like she was trying to attract a predator. I am thinking that in a wild situation, a predator would end the animal's life and shorten the time the animal suffers.
I admit I never played with her. I know someone who loves rats and has a whole bunch of them.
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I just saw this sweet video, thought I would post it here.
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For some unexplainable reason, humans on the whole believe they are far superior to animals. It's all about how you interact with them, setting boundaries and how you behave. Puppy school is not for pups, it's for their owners. Bad or mean horses aren't born that way, it's how they're reared and handled. So on and so forth. On the whole they run rings around us lot! There's a lot to be said about taking the time to watch your animal family, it will make life a whole lot easier.
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I found a kitten on the side of the road. Lucky for him I stopped my utility vehicle to enjoy an amazing sunset and heard his cries. I took him home and fed him. Then I guessed that maybe he belonged to the house adjacent to the barn where we keep our heifers. He was at least a quarter mile down the road in very tall grass. I brought him back the next day and his mom let me know I was right. After that he would often come visit me as I was doing my chores at the barn. He never forgot I was the one who saved him and he let me know how much he loved me for that.
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I had a dog that had a really good memory and was able to learn how to flip a latch by watching my dad once!
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I love that name! We had a cat once that did the same thing. He was a 9 month old kitten and super skinny, like, we could see his bones. We started to feed him and he stayed! We named him kitty.
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I think we would agree, the best pet companions are when they choose you to be their human.
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Love this video, shows cows are curious & playful beings too.
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I think we would agree, the best animal companions are those who choose us to be their humans.
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Looking into the eyes of my chickens and geese, all I can see reflected back is a lively and curious intelligence. The eyes of the chickens tell me that their intelligence is of a more immediate, practical sort. The eyes of the geese tell me that they're more introspective and use a higher cognitive power. It's funny, the geese are often too smart for their own good! They'll honk loudly and be skeptical of anything new, even good stuff, and risk missing out, whereas the chickens will quickly eye up a situation, and decide whether or not to go for it without any deeper consideration. The chickens often seem to make smarter choices than the geese in a way, though the geese are clearly more intelligent overall. not sure how anybody can look into the eyes of either and not conclude that there's a highly conscious, sensitive being looking back.
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Around 15 years ago we had a Jersey milk cow, Annabelle, and her calf, Brisket. Annabelle was always showing us things that were out of the ordinary. Once, the calf, Brisket kept coming to the fence line that was visable from our front window and doing a back and forth cutting movement, then running off out of view. After about the third time I went out to see what was going on...we had left the water on and it was running over. I turned it off, he came to the fence and stared at me for a few minutes, looked like he was getting on to me. I thanked him and he then ran back to his mom on the other side of the pasture.
When we would take Annabelle to a friend of ours for breeding, she would become lead cow everytime. The friend had about 300 cows and he told us that it never fails, the cow that has been the most places, i.e. most experience, always became the lead. To this day, I don't know if he was pulling my leg or it was just an observation that he had made. 😋
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I am battling a very smart raccoon. I have a chicken coop and he has figured out every possible way to get in. He fit in small gaps, I closed them up. He pulled out staples, I went to clips. He went in underneath the coop, I put in cement blocks, he moved them, I put in rebar to hold them in place. I left him bowls of cat food, he ate it and had two chickens for dessert. I have tried to catch him with no luck. I am not giving up!
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Rats make excellent pets, especially for kids. They’re clean, gentle, smart and easy to keep. And they do enjoy human contact. So sorry yours came from a less than optimal situation. So many people either can’t or won’t exercise even basic common sense when figuring out how to care for a fellow creature.
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