My mother and I had a dog that was so smart and taught itself tons of things. When my mother was in cancer treatment and needed rest, he stopped waking her up to unlock the back door and started opening my bedroom door and nudging me quietly when he needed to go outside. He tiptoed the whole way trying not to wake her up. He did this until she was healthy again and then went back to barking and waking her up when he needed to go out.

your dog is a genius.... HE TRAINED YOU TO GET UP AND OPEN THE DOOR SO HE DOESNT HAVE TO WALK AROUND LOL

I suffer from anxiety and depression, and when I was really sick, I found myself standing in the kitchen, not knowing what to do next and feeling very distressed. Our cat, who didn’t like being touched or cuddled unless she instigated it, jumped down from the couch, walked in a circle around me, walked back to the couch and meowed. She did it 3 times, and it was clear that she wanted me to sit on the couch and rest. So I sat where she indicated, and she jumped on my lap and stayed with me so I would feel better. Very sweet.

One day I was eating a snack outside on campus with many other students around. When all of a sudden a crow swoops down and lands on the bench 12” away from me. The crow had been checking out my pop-tart and asked very politely for a bite. He asked by making a purrrr-click*click* noise. I was so impressed and the students walking by thought for sure it was a pet of mine. After the first treat the crow was inching its way closer for more. I couldn’t resist and gave it one more crust-crumble bite off the pop-tart. I’ll never forget that sound the crow made. That crow hung out with me for like 3 minutes- it may have been just using me for some pop-tart bites- but I didn’t mind; just to be that close to a critter- to have that critter show empathy and sweetness to ask for something so politely- I was in awe.

I’m watching this across the room from my parrot who is happily asleep in this warm room because she figured out how to turn the AC unit off

If I had a talking parrot, the first thing I would teach it to say is "Help, they've turned me into a parrot!

I had an experience with a couple of crows recently, I ride a bike everywhere and a few weeks ago I had stopped at a red light and a crow landed on my handlebar which fascinated me , it then flew to the grass at the side of the road where there was another crow standing by a bush with berries on it and part of the bush was on the outside of a mesh fence and part inside, the outside had no berries left but the inside was covered in the berries and I instinctively knew that they wanted me to free the bush for them to reach the berries which I did, I then got back on my bike and the two crows flew next to me until I again reached the traffic lights and then returned to the bush, it blew my mind.

My dog absolutely hates loud noises, specially the fire alarm at my old condo - we moved in when the building was relatively new and fire alarm system had a lot of issues and went off all the time. He always would freak out and hide under the table when the alarm would go off. It happened so many times, I used to just put on my noise cancelling headphones and try to ignore it. About a year into living there, he started randomly barking at the door at around 4am. I thought he had to go out so I put him on the leash and walked out into the hall. He started barking even louder in the hallway, then refused to get on the elevator, actually pulled me on the leash towards the stairwell. Around half way down the stairs (we were in the 15th floor), the alarm started. I expected him to freeze and start wining, but he didn’t - he completely ignored it, kept pulling me down the stairs. We finally got outside which was when I finally saw the outside of the building, and a huge fire on the balcony of the 20th floor (someone had an illegal propane heater on the balcony that caught fire). He must have literally smelled the fire the second it started - and knew he had to get me outside as soon as possible, and he somehow knew not to trust the elevator (the unit that caught fire was right next to the elevators) - I still don’t really get how he knew that.

"empathy is a sign of intelligence"..... This explains a lot of social media

I once got a little peek after hours at an aquarium and got to see the divers cleaning the tanks. The gentleman escorting us said that the divers love the octopus tank because she is playful and affectionate... very cat-like. The guide said that often the divers will take a second to sit cross-legged and the octopus will crawl into their lap for pets. That story still makes me smile. :-)

I’ll never forget my daughter who was 3 at the time, playing with the goats from next door. I overheard her speaking to the goats and I said ‘ they don’t understand English ‘. So she says ‘ come here brown goat and it does, then says ‘come here white goat’ and white goat obliges. She looked up at me and said ‘see’. I couldn’t argue with that evidence now could I? 😂

I love the story that was in the WSJ like 40 years ago about parrots. This one guy had an African Grey that was as smart as a 6 year old and could speak sentences and do simple math. But it was also as emotionally immature as a 6 year old. The researcher was running the parrot through his paces when the parrot stopped giving correct answers. He said, "what's 12 divided by 4?". And the parrot would say something nonsensical like "blanket". The researcher said, "Well he's done for the day. We'll get nothing more out of him." and he left the room. The reporter was standing next to the cage and parrot sidled over on his perch to the reporter and said, "three". Another guy had a parrot who knew to ask for different fruit including bananas and cherries. The parrot had never had an apple before and he was given an apple slice. The parrot ate the slice and the researched asked what was that fruit, and the parrot said, "banerry". It's white inside like a banana and red outside like an apple so he created a new word to name the fruit. Love that stuff.

Here is my cool smart pet story: When I was 10 my stepfather had an African grey parrot named Bird and a giant Mastiff dog named Rink. One day Bird decided he wanted to play a joke on Rink. So, every day around 30 minutes or so after I got home from school Rink and I would be chilling on my bed watching T.V. when all of a sudden we would hear my stepfather coming in closing the door and calling Rink to the front of the house. Rink would jump off my bed, haul ass into the living room and go sliding across the 1930s era hardwood floors with his tail wagging expecting see my stepfather standing there. What he got instead was Bird laughing hysterically 😱 Poor dog, it took him a couple of months to realize my stepfather never got home before 5 o’clock during the week so if he heard him calling it was most likely Bird doing the calling. Even better than that, it took me a couple of months to realize Bird started doing this because he was jealous of us hanging out in my room with out him. When I finally figured out that was the reason, after school when I got home I would go get Bird out of his cage and bring him in my room with Rink and I. That did it, he stopped torturing poor Rink and only messed with him occasionally just to let him know who was boss 😱 That is one of my fondest memories from my childhood. I am 50 now and poor old Rink is long gone. Bird on the other hand is still going strong 😁 African Grey’s can have a lifespan of more than 60 years. Cheers

My Jack Russel will bark at the door to be let out, then run back and steal the warm spot on the chair you just vacated.

When I lived in Alaska I got real familiar with how intelligent ravens are. There were a few who hung around my place that I would feed and talk to. They became more and more frequent visitors and eventually started warning me when people approached my front door and once returned a ring I lost in the snow. I just came out my door in the morning to feed them and have a chat and one of them landed on the railing next to me, let me scratch his neck, then he put the ring down on the railing and jumped off. I had been looking for the damn thing all night, though I thought I'd lost it down the sink while doing dishes. They got extra treats that day! I can also attest to the fact that they hold grudges. A delivery guy once kicked at one of them and after that they would scold him and dive bomb him every time he approached.

Thank you for mentioning rats- no one believes me when I talk about how complex their social structures are, how there have been studies that suggest that their vocalizations are complex enough that they could be considered a language (they're constantly squeaking in frequencies we can't hear). Rats have been taught to drive little cars. Rats have been taught to understand money. Rats can do basic math, which I've seen myself with casual experiments with piles of treats. They have multiple hiding places for food storage, which we refer to as a "diverse asset portfolio". They recognize different people and behave differently based on prior interactions, including displays of interspecies empathy. It's not just mazes, they're ridiculously smart and the coolest animals I've ever worked with.

I’ve always loved animals so growing up I would pet, hug, wave at, talk to any animal I see, especially stray dogs. I grew up in Eastern Europe and only a decade ago every city had multiple packs of stray dogs basically owning the streets. So I would befriend the local chapter of the dog gang and keep in touch - treats, pets, the usual. The leader of the local pack was a tall male grey dog, beautiful! He wasn’t old but he was definitely respectable and he didn’t allow anyone to pet him. He didn’t wag his tail or do ‘the puppy eyes’, he was the boss and he owned it. I was in my late teens walking home from a bar in the middle of the night. I lived in town so it was a short, familiar walk and I’d done it many times before, being no stranger to spending all my money on drinks. Teenagers.. Anywho, I was about 10mins from my front door when I noticed a man walking behind me. At first I didn’t pay much attention but as I walked on I noticed he is not just walking home, like me. He was deliberately walking after me. I glanced back at him and at the moment our eyes met he sped up towards me. I figure he was hoping to surprise me and I ruined it so he was going for it now. I looked around and there was no one around to call for help, not even cars driving by. I was in serious trouble. And out of nowhere the big grey stray dog that runs the neighbourhood jumped between me and the man and started growling at him. He was joined by 4 or 5 dogs from his pack and they circled the man, baring teeth, barking, growling. He took a step back and made a run for it, away from me and my pack of heroes. So that’s how I was saved by a dog that never even let me pet it. For some reason he thought I was worth saving. That’s pretty smart.

I have a pretty big dog. Every single time he walks down the stairs he forgets to look up when he gets to the bottom and bangs his chin on the floor. Then he looks around with this shocked look as if he has not done it a million times before.

I used to work in Death Valley. There was at least one raven who had figured out how to retrieve food from "bird-proof" garbage cans. These are not open-topped, but rather have lids with small openings in the center. I watched a raven one day reach into the small opening with its beak, take hold of the plastic bag, pull it through the small opening, and hold it down with its talons. It repeated the process, beak over claw, until it had pulled the bottom of the bag with its contents to the surface. But the really scary thing I witnessed there involved the coyotes. I was driving along a road in the middle of the day when I saw a coyote just standing in the middle of the road. I slowed down, but the coyote did not move as I approached. When I finally came to a stop, two more coyotes popped out of a ditch on the side of the road and flanked my car. They had figured out how to stop tourists so they could be fed scraps out the windows.

I have two interesting stories about animal intelligence. Once when I was younger, I watched a littke black bird pull a worm out of the ground and bring it over to the edge of a pond. There, the bird dipped the worm in the water and used it to catch a little fish. This blew my mind at the time. Like, the bird was able to over come the desire to eat the worm because it knew it could use ot to catch a better meal. My second story is a little less interesting but I find it kind of funny. So my cat, like all cats, likes to think he's our alarm clock. Constant meowing, biting, climbing all over us. The typical annoying cat stuff first thing in the morning 😂 Usually we just ignore him, but recently he's started using a new tactic. He's learned that my fiance needs the white noise of the fan to sleep, so if all else fails, he literally goes over to the fan and pulls the plug out of the wall. He's done this multiple times and it's wild to me 😂

I trained a family of fruit flies to indicate when it was time to take out the trash.

There's another detail about the mask experiment with the crows: some of the researchers wore _different_ masks, ones not worn originally, and they only went after the ones wearing the original masks. So they didn't just tell each other 'mask people bad', they conveyed specific _descriptions_ of the masks, _and_ did that generationally. Which is just beyond amazing, I love crows

My step mom inherited a parrot from her mom his name was Chico and he was 20 years old. He was the most awesome bird ever for instance when Chico moved in with us I was around 18 or 19year's old Diane my step mom said to Chico "I sure would love to pet you Chico" Chico looked her dead in the eye and said "It'll hurt" and he got on the back of my chair and started watching TV with me. He also knew my voice because only when I would walk in the house would he call out "hello pretty girl" and of course I would say hi back. But one of his favorite things to do was to whistle at Diane's 3 poodle dogs and ask if they wanted to go out side and when they would run to the door he would laugh so hard. Chico was only social with me I mean he would dance with me his favorite music was Spanish music we would share puffy cheetos together and watch TV if I was on the floor he was on my hip the first time my step mom saw him on my hip watching TV together I thought she was going to explode Chico wouldn't give her the time of day anyway Chico loved it when I'd put on a scary movie he'd wait for the really intense part when you're white knuckling your chair and Squawk at the top of his lungs and scare me to death and he'd laugh his tail feathers off. His previous companion was not much fun for him always in his cage or on top of it didn't really cut loose and show who he really was til he moved in with us I never really cared for bird's I think they're annoying as pets but Chico was definitely my kind of friend . I have so much more about Chico but I'm sure you're tired of reading this. Thank you for doing this job you're awesome.

I used to have an orange tabby cat that I really truly thought it was the dumbest animal I had ever met in my life until one day, he exhibited a behavior I will never forget and still impresses me to this day…25 years +3 cats later..😢😻 his name was Darius and he had this horrific high-pitched whistle of a meow, and he would meow 24 seven at the wall. He would walk around our apartment staring about 6 inches away from any solid surface and meow at it incessantly. Mind you my husband was working construction 75 hours a week at that point and was physically and emotionally exhausted.. One night Darius changed my mind about him forever. He had been staring at the wall meowing at about one in the morning and I was still up watching TV in the living room. I could hear my extremely irritated husband throw the covers off of the bed and start to roll out of bed and as he was doing that Darius knew he was coming to get scolded and I saw the cat from a room away.. freeze and look desperately left and right, left and right for a place to run too… and then he darted into the living room with me and jumped up onto his chair, climbed up on the back, curled up in a ball, and tucked his head away like he had been sound asleep all along. When my husband got in the room Darius raised his tiny little head all Blinky eyed and yawned like my husband had just woke him up…. Thus… it couldn’t possibly have been “him” meowing! I swear he would have pointed his paw at the other cat if he could’ve…..I have never seen such intelligence out of another cat to this day…😻🤯🤯

My African Gray scolds the cats in my voice when they sharpen their claws on the furniture. With this and a plethora of other things, he scares me with how smart he is sometimes.

I'm so glad you included crows!! I used to feed them twice a day (until I got a dog who didn't want to share me). Depending on the time of year I would have between 50 and 200 crows show up at sunrise and sunset. If I overslept they would take turns racing by my bedroom window, waking me by casting shadows, or dropping pebbles on my metal roof. They called me out of my house once with the most horrifying racket you've ever heard: one of the family had been taken out by a hawk, with the hawk breaking its neck the crow had fallen back to the earth in my yard, dead. I let them have their funeral for awhile then carefully, respectfully wrapped it in a towel in order to bury it. After that it was like I was one of them: they would fly up near the table I sat at on the porch to watch me draw, say hello, or any of a number of various interactions - as long as it was at a safe distance. They never seemed to want to interact more than that and I didn't push. When there was a new generation there would be what I called a "ceremony day:" while feedings were silent procedures with only the sound of so many wings, the next generation would show up with the adults one day and there'd be the sound of all these tiny cheeps in the air as they celebrated their gathering spot. Finally, when my howling beagle came into the picture I had to distance myself from the crows, and they seemed to understand. Honestly I think they were glad I wasn't alone anymore. A parting gift was a perfectly clean sheet of paper dropped onto my porch - for my drawing habit. Had I not seen it flutter down with my own eyes I would have thought someone was messing with me. To this day I have no idea where they got the paper from, but it looked like printer paper to me. Never once did a single crow poop on our house or car, or tear apart our windshield wipers, or tear open our trash. Also, when I had to go out several would follow me to my appointment and "look after" me until I got home - even to my doctor's office which was 16 miles away. Once my dog entered the picture they stopped following the car - I assume it was because he was picking up the slack.

I have a cat called Strauss (after the composer) and he has noticed that i always use the door handles when using the doors in my flat. All apart from one are literally just push doors so the handle is purely there for when you want to pull them open. Strauss will push on the handle of every door apart from the one that you have to move to open the door, at which door he will jump up and catch the door handle to open that door. Blows my mind.

My sisters dog Chandler (Bing) is a Shitzu who we’ve always considered very dumb. Always running into stuff, barking at every sound as if it’s someone coming through the door (it’s usually not) One day there were unmatched pairs of shoes all over the house. Chandler brought each missing shoe to its other pair, completing each pair. Chandler is a savant.

So, my take away from this is: When out in nature, feed the crows. You never know when you might need a friend.

As a kid I visited a woman who rescued and kept dozens of animals in her house. She had a crow that could bark, meow and nearly vocalize words, and it had a wicked sense of humor, always playing pranks on the other animals. I've always had respect for crows after that.

I had a rabbit who's temporary cage was a large dog kennel with vertical bars. Rabbits are quite fussy about the neatness of their home and will clean and move toys to a chosen pile. We put this wicker ring into her cage and she immediately came over, stared at the toy for about 2seconds, looked up, back at the toy, back at the bars, back to the toy, about 5 times before picking up the ring turning her head sideways and shoving it outside her cage. It surprised to me to watch a little critter seemingly problem solve and do some simple measurements. Rabbits are surprisingly smart, basically the same level of intelligence of a dog.

When I first moved out into my first apartment, I got a couple of Manx kittens. One of these, Ginger, was scary smart. The two of them liked to supervise while I was in the bathtub, but sometimes wanted go go in and out rather than sitting through the whole performance. One evening they had been particularly active, and I got tired of getting out of the tub to open the door. At this point Ginger was in the bathroom, and decided she wanted out. I stayed put. When a few vocal demands were ignored, she started jumping up and swatting at the sash of my robe hanging on the door. I told her to stop it. She looked at me, jumped and swatted again, then sat and looked at me again as in “so what are you going to do about it?” I wadded up my washcloth and put it on the edge of the bathtub and said “you do that again and you’re getting hit with a wet washcloth.” I should mention that I had never done this, or even threatened to do this, before. She bounced over to the tub, hooked the washcloth and tossed it across the room, then went and lay down on it. And went to sleep. It might have been coincidental, but it really didn’t feel like it.

20:08 ''they can remember peoples names even after decades apart'' Chimpanzees are officially more intelligent than I am. I fail to remember peoples names minutes after they told me.

Crows hold funerals. You can't just say that and not elaborate

My dad told me a story about growing up there was a crow in his neighborhood that would catch garden snakes and apparently intentionally drop them on women passing underneath lmao

We accidentally trained our cats to hunt for spiders when they hear ‘murder’. Our one sweet girl will chirp at the front door around nine-thirty, when I usually get home from work. One night, the bus didn’t get me home until almost one. She’d been chirping, getting steadily more distressed, until I opened the door. And had to quickly catch this now-purring cat. I love her. She’s such a good kitty.

A few years ago I was visiting my mother in winter. She had one of these bird feed things hanging in the garden, a bulb of fat the size of a child's fist, with embedded seeds, inside a net, hanging from a branch by a string of about 20 cm. Small birds would come one by one, hang on to the net, and eat tiny pieces. Then a group of jackdaws (small kind of crow) came, and also tried to eat from it, but found they were too heavy to stabilize themselves while hanging on to the net. Next they just sat around and looked at it for a few minutes, and were cawing a lot. I would swear they were analyzing and debating the puzzle. Then one flew to the branch and roped the bulb up to take the weight of it, another untied the knot with its beak, and they all flew of with it. We laughed our asses off, our minds blown :P

Crows also know about trade. There’s a girl in Seattle that fed crows and they started bringing things in return. Stuff like bottle caps and such.

I had a pit bull named Remo. I literally found him running down the center lane of a busy street. He was maybe 15 months old and we lived in a 2 bedroom condo with my roommate, Big Jay. He was on a crazy diet at the time and would boil eggs a dozen at a time every freaking day! One day, he was running late for class and forgot that there was a huge pot of eggs still boiling on the stove! My God…you can guess what happened….after all the water had boiled out, the eggs started to burn…then they began exploding all over the stove, floor and ceiling….what was left in the pot continued burning, flooding the condo with thick, white smoke. Poor Remo was there, trapped in that smoke, doors and windows locked. Luckily, I had come home from work early because I broke a heel on my shoe. The fire department had just showed up…I sprinted up the stairs, fearing the worst, screaming to the firemen that my baby was in there… I opened the door and frantically searched through the smoke that was so thick, you could almost slice it like cake. Five seconds inside and I was already coughing. I swear my heart just sank. I was just praying it wasn’t too late…Finally, I made my way to Big Jay’s side of the house and into his bathroom. That was where I found Remo…in the shower…with his nose to the drain. My genius dog knew he could get fresh air from the drain in the shower. It saved his life. My head almost exploded. 🤯

That thing about octopi crossing tanks happens in pet stores too. In one case a pet store set up hidden cameras and discovered that at night a small octopus that had secretly hitchhiked in with live rock was leaving that tank, crawling across the floor and up into another tank, snacking on very expensive reef fish, then crawling back across the floor and re-entering "its" tank.

My mom always tells me about how one of her schoolmates back in the 50s had a crow that they raised when they found it out of the nest. That crow was apparently *always* at the school bus stop waiting for their favorite human to get home.

I live by the beach and one day i was walking on the beach and i saw a crow or a raven practicing a trick. It was flying with a twig in its mouth and practicing dropping the twig from its mouth and grabbing it with its feet mid-flight. It did this multiples times sometimes dropping the twig not being successful in grabbing it with its feet, but kept retrying. My mind was blown watching this.

I once saved a very young raven trapped in a cage,it’s mother was nearby in the tree yelling at me to save him.The next day and many days she would come back to the tree next to me thank me and was friendly like no others.Birds been around since the dinosaurs and are amazing.

My dog is dumb as a box of rocks and I LOVE that about him. Super uncoordinated too. Sometimes he misses a step when he tries to go upstairs and boops his head into a step, then looks around to see if anyone saw, as if he was embarrassed or something 😂

"He is an idiot but he is my idiot". Wish my parents could say so about me!!!

We have an Amazon parrot that we raised from 3 weeks old. She's 11 now and uses words in context all the time. She also combines phrases in ways she was never taught.

i used to work in a bird rescue center, actually the entire corvid family can mimic human speech and sounds. one christmas the guy that ran the place got very ill with a serious cough, one of the magpies learned this cough so perfectly she used to fool us to think he was in that room and in trouble, obviously we would come in and the magpiie gets attention. ive heard ravens and crows talk and a jackdaw got pretty close. also i watched ravens perform the kids puzzle of putting the correct shape blocks in the correct holes.

I worked at an aviary that bred exotic birds and we had an African Grey who would mimic the phone ringing, then call out, "Alex! Phone!". The staff all knew about this trick of his. Here's the smart part: when the phone actually **did** ring, the bird would call for Alex of Dennis (the other owner) to answer the phone. That bird knew **context** and used it to call staff members to the phone when it rang. Another fun one, this time from a wild Raven: I was waiting at a bus stop one winter and noticed a Raven poking at the snow in the gutters of the building across the street. He would stop periodically to caw and flap his wings, looking for all the world like he was swearing and having a temper tantrum because he couldn't find whatever it was he'd stashed in the gutter. He eventually found what he was looking for and his vocalizations changed to more excited as he stood on his prize, then pecked it apart and ate it. The other people standing at the bus stop with me didn't notice his behaviour until I started laughing. When I explained what I thought I'd seen, they laughed, too. :-)

About Alex the African grey: Alex was the only non-human animal ever recorded to ask a question about himself. He was able to identify a number of colors, but when he saw himself in a mirror, he asked "What color?" Even apes trained in sign language haven't been observed asking questions about themselves. He could also understand relative concepts like bigger/smaller, and same/different. He even invented some of his own words, and deliberately tried to train his caretakers to use those words, "correcting" them if he thought they used the wrong one. He even seemed to understand "I'm sorry," at least he understood that it was a phrase that diffused tension or could help make someone less upset.

Oh he knows he can walk around. He just wants you to open the door :p he's been pranking you for 12 years

The poodle’s outlandish haircut actually had a practical purpose when poodles were used as water retriever hunting dogs. It was to keep vital body parts of the dogs warm while also streamlining the dogs fur for swimming.

i recently started taking my 1 year old springer spaniel to dog parks. He hadn't had much experience actually playing with other dogs before, and was pretty nervous around them since he was very small, and also since he'd had some bad experience with bigger dogs getting too rough with him. But going to the dog park really helped boost his confidence and he's generally friendly and polite with them. I love taking him to dog parks because you get to see just how interesting dog society is. Dogs are able to make friends with each other, set and respect boundaries, and overall they're just very fun to watch. My dog's still not super social around other dogs, but he is the most extroverted guy around people. He loves all people he meets. Whenever someone comes to our house he won't leave them alone. He'll even hide between the closest human's legs when he gets scared. But despite this, the bond he has with his family is so strong. When we're walking with him off leash, he'll go off and do his own thing, but he always comes back when we call him (sometimes it takes more than one attempt) and most of the time he'll come back on his own to check on us. If he's lying on the couch with us and we get up, he gets up, and vice versa. He might not be the smartest animal on the planet, but he has such a big heart and so much love to give. Also he always insists on taking all his toys outside to play with them. He'll sit and wait at the door for us to let him out with his toy- so he gets extra cute points :)

“He’s an idiot. But he’s *my* idiot.” I had a Golden who I felt the exact same way about. She was a 100lb chonker who didn’t have two brain cells to smack together, but I loved her to pieces.

Ok: I’ll share a “spookily smart” story. My first dog, who my parents brought home to me when I was five, was named Tattoo. We lived in rural Ontario near Ottawa. When he wanted to go outside he would utter one bark at the front door. One night he gave the signal and I let him out. He came back a half hour later, his usual romp time, and gave the single bark “I’m home” signal. All’s well and normal. I let him in. A minute later he gave the “let me out” bark again, so I let him out. A minute after that he barked to come in. I let him in. (At this point I was 12 and he was six-ish.) This sequence repeated another time, so I got my dad. Sure enough, Tattoo wanted out again, but with dad watching, Tattoo barked several times instead of his usual demure single yap. We let him out and followed him. He got to the second electrical pole next to our quarter mile driveway and stopped, barked, and then stared at us. All was quiet except a loud thrumming sound coming from the electrical wires. Turns out that when the new poles and cables had been installed in August the workers had strung the cables too tightly so that on that really cold night in January the cables had contracted to near the breaking point. We called Ontario Hydro the next day and they cleared up the mystery as they fixed the issue. Thanks to Tattoo disaster was narrowly averted.

When I was a child I had a cat (calico breed) that seriously most of the time I thought I had a dog that purred and meowed 😂… whenever somebody knocked at the door and he noticed nobody answered and the guest persisted in knocking, the cat went out side the house to the gate to see if really there was somebody knocking and came back inside the house and persisted on grabbing our attention to follow him until we reached outside and answered whoever was at the gate wanting to come in. And this wasn’t only one time, this was an every time thing that it did. Family, friends and neighbors already knew about and whenever they were greeted at the door by him they would actually communicate with him like “ hey go grab só and so and tell them I’m here “ 😂 no joke… unfortunately somebody at the neighborhood disliked cats and set up a trap 🪤 with poison to kill my cat and killed him and got away with it .. that was the most intelligent sweetest pet I ever had… 😢

According the lady with the highest I.Q. of all humans said "People mistake intelligence with vast experience in a certain field or with those who have obtained an extensive education." She went on to say "Intelligence is problem solving with situations at hand.

Dolphin facts : Dolphins are more curious around pregnant women as they can see the baby with their visual echo location. Also Dolphins have gang bangs.

Joe: Showing his dog. Everyone: Analyzing Joe's house.

So watching this video in August of 2022, and wanted to share a story of a random bird who flew right in front of me as I was walking. I had to stop cold in my tracks or I would have stepped on him. He looked me in the eye, looked over at a pretzel on the sidewalk and looked back at me. I understood instantly that he wanted me to crush the pretzel so he could eat the crumbs. I happily complied, and he immediately flew over to start eating. It was a special moment with a mind control bird. 😄❤️

I have a funny story about Galahs, a pink and grey parrot from Australia. It was raining, and a flock of galahs landed on the electric wires, running down our road. Suddenly, they all fell backwards and hung upside down with their wings out, catching the rain. The boss bird, walked over their feet and made sure that everyone was upside down, pushing the chest of anyone who wasn’t, until they were upside down. Lots of squawking and cackling accompanied this process, and they looked like they were having the time of their lives.😂😂😂

I have horses and had goats in the past(sadly the goats have all since passed away)…one day the goats came back to the house & were calling (bleating) to get my attention…this was very unusual as the goats always stayed with the horses…(unless they came in the house for Cheerios, lol)…I decided to go over to the goats and they immediately turned when they saw me following…i followed them up into a back pasture where we had recently fenced in a new area…one of the horses had gotten on the other side of the fence & was running back and forth trying to get back in …the goats had come to get me to help…goats are very smart and very cool!

There's also an awesome story of this girl and her mom who feed crows. The crows bring them trinkets but also the mom was out one day miles from home and dropped a lense cover for her camera. She didn't notice but when she got home sure enough the lens was left on the bird bath where they always leave there gifts. Also a gray parrot solved a murder

I love the story of the octopus covering his tracks. When i was 3-4, i would take the broom from the kitchen to unlatch the hook (out of my reach) keeping the porch door closed. Before going out to explore the neighborhood, i'd put the broom back where it belonged. Until she caught me in the act she was going crazy wondering how i got out (i did it often). Her own fault for training me too well to put things away, lol. The elephant memory is truly incredible. The actor Tippi Heddron created a sanctuary to take in big cats & elephants from the entertainment industry. She researched their histories, even finding out where they had been captured & shipped from. She once discovered a new arrival had been captured 30 years previously with an elephant she'd had for a while. The first time they were in sight of each other they both began to call. When next to each other, they put their foreheads together & wrap their trunks around each other. It's quite awesome. Edit: i know this is already long but... Goats have another thing in common with dogs. When a human points, they will both look to where the person is pointing. A cat will stare at the tip of your finger, lol. So, even more. 😱 My personal experience was with my brother's dog. He had fathered a second litter with my brother's other dog. One summer afternoon, a few of us humans were picnicking while mama dog & pups were chilling on their blanket & papa wondered around. At one point, the almost month old pups started exploring farther away from the blanket. Not expecting it to be done, i anyway said, "Strauss, go get the puppies.". To everyone's astonishment, he immediately herded his offspring back onto the blanket.

Driving through Alaska and through BC back to the states, I noticed every 1/2 mile or so a pair of ravens, one on either side of the highway. Mile after mile of this, finally figured they were getting the insects blasted out of the air by passing cars and trucks. Love these birds.

One time I watched a argument between a squirrel and a crow over some food on the ground. It lasted 45 minutes, and it got physical. They were both using a small tree and its branches to attack each other. It was insane. Oh yeah, and the squirrel won after the crow gave up in obvious (and loud) frustration.

I kept goats for many years. I kept them within an electric fence in the fields to safe guard the trees and hedges . I used a Battery powered unit. I then began to find goats "out " of their enclosure. So after putting them back in I discovered on one occasion I had not put the fencer on, so there was no "tick tick "of the pulsing from the unit, So I put it back on , and hid, they went up to the box and listened , when they heard the ticking noise they walked away. Another day I deliberately left it off , and yes they went upto the unit, listened , no noise so they pushed there way through . Pretty smart !!

The most amazing thing I've seen an animal do is the gorilla that can communicate in sign language. She doesn't really use proper sentences, but she could relate stories of her past to her owner which was incredible to watch because it was a communication with animals that we never normally see

I had a dog who understood the concept of lying, and would lie to my other dog. I've seen my cat utilize tools. I had lizards who understood a couple of words. I think animals are, in general, more intelligent than we believe.

When I was a kid my parents found a young crow. He wasn't old enough to fly, so we fed him until he became and adult. My father even built a big tall cage for him to safely practice flying without fear of the cats. After a while we freed him, he joined some other crows that there were in the neighborhood, yet he didn't forget us. My father would call him and he would come to eat the treats we had for him. Smartest per ever

Our little parrot, Kyoru will put his head down to receive head kisses. If you give him too many head kisses, he screams “NO” in your face 😂😂😂

Years ago I was diving on the on- ramp to the freeway when I saw a murder of crows. I just kept driving thinking these birds would get out of the way. Most did, but one was a little slow and bounced off the top of my windshield. I watched from my rear view mirror as it rolled violently across the road. For weeks afterwards, birds would come from all around just to poop on my car.

One time I was visiting a friend and the route I always took was blocked off. So I had to take a detour and drive a way I had never gone before. As I was looking for the correct street to turn onto, my dachshund started getting all excited like she always does when we go to a friend’s house. Just then, the road I was looking for was right in front of me, and I realized I was only a block away. My dog knew where we were before I did, even though we had never gone that way before.

Yes I would be disappointed if my dog didn’t get into a good college.

I've been raising goats for years and have a bunch of stories. We call them 'raptor' smart, specifically because they go around and test the fences systematically, looking for weaknesses. And when they find one, they exploit it but will try not to do so in front of the hoomans. Out first two goats were especially good at escaping before we got smarter about it. One had horns and the other did not, so the horned one would lift the fence for the hornless one to slip out, then follow it. They also liked to buck each other but the hornless one (called 'polled') would get his scalp split by the other's horns. One day I saw it walking around with their water bucket on its head so I ran out and got the bucket off, refilled it, and went back in the house. I watched from the window as the same goat walked up to the bucket, tipped it over, flipped it onto it's head, and then ran at his horned friend. He wore the bucket like a helmet so he could buck with impunity. That's more than using tools. That's making armor. Absolutely crazy.

The first 3 cats that my husband and I had: Ian was too smart for our own good. Frannie would watch Ian do something just once, and learn how to do it. Our 3rd cat, Martin … Martin, "rode the short-bus to school." Ian could open lever-door-handles, and I once caught him trying to open door knobs, his paw-size being the only thing that prevented him from succeeding. We had to put eye-hooks and baby-locks on certain doors to keep Ian and Frannie out of those closets & cabinets. Frannie attempted to manipulate us, including after we got Martin. Which backfired on her, because Martin _grew_ [we think he was part Maine Coon]. Martin took _4 years_ to figure out how to "hiss-n-spit" to express displeasure … but he did it wrong. Instead of hissing, he'd let out this pathetic, "Hhhhh." He'd basically say the letter-H instead of hissing. We still acted like he was hissing, though, because it was so pathetic and cute we felt bad for him. It took him another 2 years to learn how to hiss correctly. We had Ian for 14 years, and Frannie and Martin for 16.5 years. And lost them 5 years apart, Ian in 2009, Frannie in 2014, and most recently Martin, in 2019. And will always remember them fondly.

In the apartment I lived in we kept the catnip, treats and food in a closet which oddly had an inward opening door. To close the door properly you had to pull it kinda hard for the latch to properly work. My cat then figured out that if he didn't hear the latch click he could run down the hallway, jump into the air and basically dropkick the door open so he could get to his treats. I would say my cat's a genius but he couldn't even wait until we left for work or even went to bed. The moment I would walk away he would run past me and kick the door open lmao.

I was watching two earwigs in a spider's web in my yard. One got free and began descending the rose bush they were on. However, it doubled back, went to the other earwig before the spider could get to it, and chewed through the webbing. Both earwigs managed to escape. VERY glad someone else was with me to witness that.

7:45 “predicting what you’re gonna need for the future and taking the actions now, planning for what you’re going to have to do later”. So basically that octopus is more intelligent than me

I know everyone thinks their pet is special, but I really did have a cat that was pretty crafty- too smart to stay an inside cat, so we just gave up even trying (figured out how to work doors with a handle and push em open, but always kept trying and failing to "grasp" the door nob lol). She would always follow me or my group around, or randomly drop by friends' houses and the places in the neighborhood where we would hang, just to chill with the people until everyone went home or she got bored. She'd often be like "Hey, HEY! human, walk me home and let me inside, you locked out again". New friends would be so confused when she showed up at their door or walked into their garage like she owned the place, while nobody else batted an eyelash- "Isn't that his cat!?", "Yea she's just looking for him, hang on. Yo! your cat is here, looks like she wants to go home!", "Ok fine, I'll walk (or drive) her back in a couple minutes" was a constant thing (had to give in, and install cat doors). She would come chill while we fished in the woods (her rubbing against my leg at night scared me a couple times at first) Also would just hop in my van both when pulling in and heading (and only the van, where she could sit up higher and look out the windows) always sitting or sleeping on the hood of another car while waiting for someone to show up. Lived to 21 somehow, despite being so scrawny, yet bold at times. She did everything on her own terms and time and didn't like to be picked up for some reason- would jump off your lap if you put her there, then immediately turn around and hop back up, but would always come hop up if she heard someone call her name (and/ or some other nicknames), especially if I patted my hand on my lap/ chest/ next to me on the couch and say "come on", or "hop up"). Kinda sad, but I'll probably never get another cat- she was a family member for (even now ~10 years later) half my life... Different thought - I have a silly theory that if the octopus evolved slightly different they would have a ancient Roman like civilization with long term settlements (towns/ cities)- If they didn't die soon after producing offspring, and lived even longer, they could teach their offspring all the stuff people and other animals do, and become more social passing down even more of those learned talents (language/ communication, how to use tools, build habits, when/ how to find recourses/ food, places/ things to avoid, etc.) I don't know much about them, but it seems possible in another timeline, fun to think about in the very least.

I used to have a canary bird that turned blind with old age. But he was still eager to live his life. So we moved all of his stuff to the bottom of the cage so he didn't have to jump from perch to perch without seeing where to land. It didn't take him long to memorise where everything was, at first he gently poked around with his beak a little, but eventually he skipped that step entirely. He'd even recognise the sound of his bath, whenever we put it down at his cage for him to have a little splash he'd immediately jump on, and then into the bath. Also with gentle touches at first, but eventually he just did blind leaps of faith into the water. (It's really shallow water, no worries.) He loved it. In the end, he was even singing a lil' song, less than an hour before he suddenly fell over. Well, I say suddenly, but we'd been expecting him to fall over from old age for years but he just... kept going. I'm proud of that ol' little fella. He was happy until the very end. My point is, though, that even the smallest and silliest of animals can be capable of amazing things.

Also I once got mugged by a couple of corvids on Richmond Green. One distracted me whist it's accomplice nicked my sandwich.

I spent a day with elephants when I visited Thailand. The juvenile male would charge at people, making them scatter. Then he would stop and swing his trunk, looking very pleased with himself.

I've actually got a lot of experience with highly intelligent animals. My pet cat, Love, is very possibly the smartest animal that I've ever encountered. We got him as a kitten, but don't know exactly how old he was, as he was a stray. It was not long before he figured out how to use the toilet, though his twin brother Cutiepie never figured it out. Love, when he was younger, also liked to play with humans more than I've seen other cats do. He would actually play fetch, even though our dog never would. Love also likes to be outside, and he has figured out that if a door is left just barely open, he can use his claws to pull it out from the frame and get outside. When his twin brother was euthanized, due to late-stage lung cancer, I insisted that we brought Love along to be with him. Love was very angry to be in the cat kennel in the car, but once we got there, he seemed to understand what was happening clearly. For the last few weeks that Cutiepie was alive, he would spend almost all of his time sitting on my dad's office chair. When we got home, Love went and laid down on the chair, exactly where Cutiepie had. My other examples of smart animals come from goats. Particularly, I have two that stick out in my mind. (I use past-tense pronouns here, they're both still alive, it's just that they both live on a different farm now so I don't see them anymore.) One is a goat named Patty. While I've observed goats using tools so much that it's become pretty normal for me, Patty took it to another level. She was the only goat who ever figured out that hay bales could be used for more than just eating and climbing on, both instincts for a goat. She would climb over the hay bale with her front legs, and then use the hay to scratch itchy spots on her belly that she couldn't reach with her horns. Goats often use tools to scratch itches they can't reach on their own, but again, this shows that her understanding of the hay bale went beyond her instinct to eat it, which it didn't for the other goats. Perhaps most impressively, though, is Fiona. Goats have an extremely strong feeding response, and will typically drop whatever they're doing at the first sign of food. Fiona loved to play with humans, though, so when we would go into the goat pen to feed them, her first response, unlike every other goat, would be to come up to us and try to play, even though there was food right there, and doing so would cut down the amount of food she got to eat. We started having to discourage her desire to always play with us, both because she was stronger than she might realize, and because we wanted her to get her share of the food.

"If you judge a fish by how well it can climb a tree you will spend your whole life believing that fish are stupid."

I used to have pet rats. I always loved when the really smart ones figured out that they can push up the little ball at the end of the drinking bottle with their paws to get little droplets of water. They used them to clean them selves or drink from their paws. Looked like the most civilized little critters.

My ferrets were crazy smart. Just lost them from old age a few months ago. Fifi & ButterBean. Butter in particular was crazy smart though. Her attention span alone was surprising for an animal. She’d focus on any task she wanted to accomplish & she’d work it out every time lol

Something I always say when it comes to relating human child to animal intelligence. Humans are born underdeveloped and live longer, so we can afford developing slower.

This is going to sound like a crazy made up story but I swear this happened Once when I was younger, there was this stray cat that gave birth near my grand-parents' house, in the egress of a basement window. Since my siblings and I were pretty young, we would often open the window to pet the kittens, but eventually the mother got annoyed and moved her babies to somewhere else, so we had no idea where they were, but since the mother was still staying in the area we figured they had to be close. So one day I was just outside in the backyard when I saw the mom (my grand-parents always said she was feral and that we should stay away, but being a cat lover I just couldn't help always trying to be nice to her) and I just straight up asked her something like "where did you put your babies?", not really expecting an answer, and she started meowing and walking slowly, looking back at me like she wanted me to follow her. So I did and she led me to the shed. The shed was built really close to the house, so there was a little space between the two buildings, but it wasn't large enough for a person to get in the gap. Turns out, that's where she had hidden the kittens, but since there was I lot of junk just randomly thrown in the gap she wasn't able to get them out by herself. So one by one she started bringing them close enough so that I could grab them with one hand and get them safely out of the gap. I was probably around 15 years old at the time but I'm never going to forget that moment

I would say my cats are the smartest animals ever. They actually managed to train multiple humans to take care of there every need in exchange for nothing.

Orcas are very empathetic and social creatures that not only recognise Orcas from the same pod that they were born in but also have different languages depending on where they are from. They also have long-term memories, this can be seen in the documentary 'Blackfish' when they talk about when Seaworld was hunting the whales and all of the mothers with calves split off from the rest of the pod to keep the young from being taken.

Raccoons are amazingly smart (and destructive). When I was a kid we had some as pets. One had a secret hiding pace in the frame of the house where she hid stuff. Also are very good at sneaking around undetected.

Teach a parrot to say “Hey Siri” to annoy Apple device owners 😂

Hey Joe... I actually live near the zoo with the swearing parrots. They've only let them out recently into the enclosure as the UK is still in lockdown. The one parrot who taught the others to swear, has actually taught more since... 🤣

I've always been impressed with the intelligence of horses. Their ability to solve problems, react effectively to all manner of situations, convey emotion, and develop relationships is right there with dogs.

My cousin had a bird and it could talk, but talk in context. The bird would call you by your name if he saw you, he would ask for different fruit to eat, whenever he would see someone leave he would say “bye bye”. It was crazy hearing what he could do, like when I would walk in a room I would be greeted by a bird saying my name.

I love how joe got so giddy at the idea of hundreds of cursing parrots for him to visit in a single place.

"Humans aren't self-aware because when you add an odd smell to their skin, they don't sniff it." ~~Dogs, performing a self-awareness test according to dog senses

I had a large standard White Labrador Retriever "Max" who was like a shepherd to our four young kids... One time they were swimming in our pool and the pool cleaner came on... The jiggling hose frightened one of my kids, and Max dove into the pool, pushed the offending hose segment away from the kid, and then bit it real hard like he was killing it. The first time he did it, I praised him for helping the kids and he was ecstatic!... So ecstatic, that he started 'killing' hose sections every couple of days (at $15 USD per section 🙃). I tried various correction methods for weeks, but I couldn't train him off of the behavior. I didn't want to discourage him from protecting the kids either... He was a really smart dog, but he was confused by my mixed message. Now, he was a brilliant dog, and showed high intelligence, and was super easy to train. But I had no idea he was so advanced, until I had a conversation with him. Yeah, an actual conversation. I sat down one late afternoon, next to the pool. I had one of the destroyed hose sections in my hand.... Max came over when I called him, and sat next to me to just hang out (we were buddies)... I sighed in frustration, and Max immediately became concerned about me. He turned to me and just looked at me... So, I decided to try something. "Max," I said calmly. "These hose sections are too expensive. I want you to stop chewing on them." I pointed to the teeth marks bon the tube, and just looked at him... Then one of the coolest moments I have ever had with an animal occurred. Max cocked his head for about 4 seconds and then I could see that he understood. He looked at me AND NODDED YES AT ME!! It was subtle, but totally real. That dog looked calmly at me at me for a few seconds (like he was making sure that I understood), then turned and walked away. Max never chewed another one of the hoses ever again. He would push the hose away from the kids if he was swimming with them, but never ruined another hose section. Man, I loved that dog. I picked him out of a litter, and had 10 good years with him. I held him as he took his last breath. Thanks for the memories, Max.

Had a pair of cats. These 2 were brothers but more importantly partners in crime. We were in the kitchen and my roommate was cooking some sausage links on the griddle as i sat across the room at the table drinking coffee. Multiple times these two heathens would jump up on the counter and try and get close to the food. They were kittens so we just thought they were being young and bad. Moments later one of the cats came up to the feet of my roommate and was begging for attention...rolling around all cute like, meowing to get attention and rubbing on his legs. Within seconds of him turning around to show affection to the uncontrollably cute kitten, his brother hopped on the counter, snagged a sausage and made a break for it. As soon as the thief had safely secured his prize the other cat immediately stopped the affection and trotted off to join his brother in the spoils. We had no choice but to let them have it at that point. This story has always stuck with me and to this day we know that we were bested in a game of wits by those two kittens.

I'm a 4th grade teacher. The longer I spend around 4th graders, the more smart my dog seems.