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Smart vs dumb cats & dogs?
We all love our pets but we also know that some are smarter than others. Whether dogs are smarter than cats or vice versa I'm not sure. Dogs certainly learn more tricks and behavior, such as herding animals on a farm, but maybe it's just that cats simply can't be bothered by learning stuff that's not of direct benefit to them? I dunno.
Anyway, what signs do you have about the relative smartness of your pets?
For example, back when I had 3 cats in a house, and a dog or other interesting thing was happening outside, 2 of the cats knew how to follow the dog outside by running from window to window as the animal passed by -- they recognized that the "outside" was one contiguous view, window to window. But the 3rd cat never learned this, and would only watch out of one window till the passing dog went out of view in that one window.
My 2 smart cats were my old terror on wheels, Vanilla, and maybe the smartest cat I've ever owned, Dupree. Dupree would jump onto the window sill to look out in winter, and if the glass was frosted, he learned to lick it clear. None of my other cats learned that trick.
Dupree would also know when certain people walked certain dogs, and when he was outside, he'd be ready for them and be watchful for the larger dogs and hiss and chase the smaller dogs, on a regular schedule.
He knew quite a few words and if I asked him "Ball?" he'd go get his ball toy, or if I asked him "Mouse?" he'd go grab his stuffed mouse to play with me.
I've watched dogs and cats eat from plates that scoot when they eat. I've seen that most dogs will put their paw on the plate to keep it steady but I've never seen a cat who knows this trick.
My old cat Vanilla was fierce and also very smart. She wanted something, she'd come over to where I was sitting, maybe on my computer or watching TV, and she'd get up on her rear legs and thump my leg with her paw to get my attention. Then she'd walk away slowly, looking back to see if I was following her. If I ignored her, she'd then claw my leg! But when I did follow her, she'd lead me to her food dish or water bowl or catbox and stand there, staring back and forth from me to the object, wanting fresh water or a snack or her catbox cleaned.
By contrast, my little adopted stray Whiskers, although a sweet cat, was dumb as a rock. He was always the last one of the cats to catch on to something and he was the one who never learned to move from window to window to watch a dog passing by. He'd also try to climb a teeny tree -- the neighbors had some little decorative trees -- and he'd get about 4 feet up and then panic and cry and mew for help. I'd have to reach and "rescue" him even though sometimes he was lower than my own head.
So just for a nice waste of electrons and time, what things have you seen to indicate relative smartness of your pets? A particularly smart dog or cat, for example. Or a totally clueless pet?
Anyway, what signs do you have about the relative smartness of your pets?
For example, back when I had 3 cats in a house, and a dog or other interesting thing was happening outside, 2 of the cats knew how to follow the dog outside by running from window to window as the animal passed by -- they recognized that the "outside" was one contiguous view, window to window. But the 3rd cat never learned this, and would only watch out of one window till the passing dog went out of view in that one window.
My 2 smart cats were my old terror on wheels, Vanilla, and maybe the smartest cat I've ever owned, Dupree. Dupree would jump onto the window sill to look out in winter, and if the glass was frosted, he learned to lick it clear. None of my other cats learned that trick.
Dupree would also know when certain people walked certain dogs, and when he was outside, he'd be ready for them and be watchful for the larger dogs and hiss and chase the smaller dogs, on a regular schedule.
He knew quite a few words and if I asked him "Ball?" he'd go get his ball toy, or if I asked him "Mouse?" he'd go grab his stuffed mouse to play with me.
I've watched dogs and cats eat from plates that scoot when they eat. I've seen that most dogs will put their paw on the plate to keep it steady but I've never seen a cat who knows this trick.
My old cat Vanilla was fierce and also very smart. She wanted something, she'd come over to where I was sitting, maybe on my computer or watching TV, and she'd get up on her rear legs and thump my leg with her paw to get my attention. Then she'd walk away slowly, looking back to see if I was following her. If I ignored her, she'd then claw my leg! But when I did follow her, she'd lead me to her food dish or water bowl or catbox and stand there, staring back and forth from me to the object, wanting fresh water or a snack or her catbox cleaned.
By contrast, my little adopted stray Whiskers, although a sweet cat, was dumb as a rock. He was always the last one of the cats to catch on to something and he was the one who never learned to move from window to window to watch a dog passing by. He'd also try to climb a teeny tree -- the neighbors had some little decorative trees -- and he'd get about 4 feet up and then panic and cry and mew for help. I'd have to reach and "rescue" him even though sometimes he was lower than my own head.
So just for a nice waste of electrons and time, what things have you seen to indicate relative smartness of your pets? A particularly smart dog or cat, for example. Or a totally clueless pet?
Replies
Had a little mutt that just would not leave the black "cat" with the white stripe down its back the 'ell alone. Even after 4,256 times getting sprayed...
"If you get it and didn't work for it, someone else worked for it and didn't get it..."
I think this is a pretty good indicator for smarts. There seems to be a divide on this, per my 3 cats, 2 of which knew where to run next, the 3rd clueless.
And zorba, I've had some of my cats try to turn doorknobs too. They watch us with everything we do, and learn from it.
Per squirrels, I've posted this before but my big tough cat Dupree had a squirrel pal who live in the tree in my back yard. I saw Dupree chase this squirrel one Saturday, round and round the bole of the tree, and up quite a ways -- Dupree was an expert climber. And then they'd trade places! The squirrel would chase Dupree and they'd have a treat, never harming one another, in that Dupree was quite a hunter too, and he could have easily snapped that squirrel's neck in a second if he'd wanted. But they were pals. Amazing how our animals behave sometimes, eh?
Sadly, Dupree met his fate to a car or truck. Smarts doesn't prevent this, really. There's no learning curve. One evening I came home from opera rehearsal to find him lying on the front doormat, cold and bruised and busted up. I buried him in the back yard with his favorite toys.
And for a long time afterward, the squirrel would come to my back door and chitter and make noise, looking for his buddy. Sigh.
I took him to a free obedience class, and it was about stopping barking for no reason, the Lady used a little yappy dog to demonstrate on, my dog yapped until he saw the other dog get spritzed, he piped down quickly..... The other dog could not get the message..
My dog likes the strangest things, and he will line them up when he is living in his own dog house......
The head tome cat in charge now is Mingo. He's mostly siamese, like his sister-wife, Pau. My wife gave them Asian names because they're Siamese. Mingo is prettin smart, but Pau, not so much. These two were incestial cats as they have had a couple litters between them and they ARE sister and brother. Now Ming is neutered like his son Alf. Alf is named after one of my wife's brother's who is cross eyed. Alf is also crosseyed so she named him that. Alf is very timid and withdrawn. When I let him in, he goes under me bed and disappears for the day. He's plenty smart though and he's about the most trouble free non mischievous cat in the house. He just stayes out of the way. We have a few outside. One is called Idioto, so named by my wife. But despite the name, he's pretty smart.
As for smart dogs we've had through the years, the smartest by far was one my sister brought home from High school. We named her Fuzzy because she was a fuzzy looking coyote looking dog but smaller than a coyote. She stood a little less than knee high. But she was smart. My dad would go up to the local stop and rob called Coles Corner every afternoon and get himself a couple of cigars. One time he let Fuzzy go with him and he thought he'd buy her a dixie cup of ice cream. He did and brought her home and when he got out of the car he gave her that ice cream. Well this progressed to a daily ritual, going to get Fuzzy's Ice Cream. Well when I started driving I got that duty handed down to me. Taking the dog to the store for her ICE Cream.
Now I realize that in itself doesn't establish intelligence because we all know some not so smart people that love ice cream. However, one episode convinced me that this was one of the smartest dogs I'd ever heard of. We had tarrazo floors in the kitchen and the living room. One night I gave Fuzzy her dixie cup and she was licking it and making the cup flop on the floor flop flop flop, and I got tired of hearing that so I sort of yelled at Fuzzy to stop that noise. That dog promptly stopped eating that ice cream and carried it over and set it down on a soft rug, which was several feet out of her way and put it on the rug and started eating it again and it was making less noise. The rug was absorbing the noise.
OK once is luck. But she did this several times and every time she'd do it she would carry that Ice cream in a different direction depending on where the rugs were situated. Some dogs and cats are truly amazing.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Jake has a bunch of stuffed toys...a squirrel, an armadillo, beaver, moose, lion, warthog, he also has a Kong....if you ask him to go get a particular toy...he'll find it and bring it to you...
Also...if someone in the house is stressed or injured, he will go get all his toys (all the things important in his life) and lay them on your lap, then settle in to be close to you.
He knows people by name....I can give anything to Jake (except a piece of jerky) and tell him to take it to mama, jessica, etc and he'll get the job done. He helps carry firewood as well....
The cats (Fuzz and Lefty) major accomplishment is laying in your lap and demanding attention...
We miss her a lot!
Jerry
If you're fast, they never really catch on that you're the water source. It just comes from nowhere if they don't behave. Doesn't take more than a half dozen squirts to teach them.
But I've never had a cat connect the water source with the person doing the squirting. Of course you have to be fast and not stand over them with the water, but hit them at a distance, fast and then you look up at the ceiling and hide the water source, Hmm Hmm, I didn't do that...
Jake has one of those as well...it's his "little red friend"...it always goes home too soon...but he knows it lives in a tubular black thing, which he will knock around with his nose in an attempt to make it work..
Cats? They are mostly interchangeable, in my experience. My daughters had 3 or 4 growing up, and their behavior was always exactly the same as the one before. I like to have a couple of wild ones hanging around outside to keep the vermin nervous, but I don't want one for a pet - can't stand all that purring and phony affection.
I know stubborn - I pretty much always had some kind of bulldog. I had a Boston Terrier when I was kid, and it took a couple hours a day for two weeks to teach him to sit on command and stay there when I walked away. He would stand up and I would sit him back down - up and down, endlessly. But once he got it, everything else went pretty well.
Good post. I love dogs and had them growing up but a guy who's single and working long hours just cannot do the dog justice -- they deserve more time, which I was unable to provide. It's totally unfair to coop up a dog in an apartment, even if it's a large one, all day. And although teeny dogs might be okay, I don't like "snack size" dogs at all -- they have to be real size, spaniel size at least.
So I migrated to cats. And I can tell you that cats are simply not interchangeable. They're as different among themselves as are dogs. But cats are also very different in their personalities and behavior to dogs, which might contribute to your opinion of them.
Cats are also a lot more lazy than dogs, if you let them laze and don't train and play with them. It's more tempting to essentially "ignore" a cat because they're self-keeping in many ways are don't require the individual attention that dogs do. But they're very different in personality, same as dogs. And they come in varied degrees of smart. And along the same lines, their intelligence is very different from dogs.
Dogs are pack animals and choose you as their alpha male (even if you're female). Cats are not pack adapted and therefore are more individualistic. Not necessarily smarter, just differently wired. But I can tell you that a nicely treated cat is just as happy to see you come home as is a faithful dog. My old buddy RJ would run to me, meowing and begging for petting and glad I was home from work. And our new little calico Cali is that way w. my girlfriend -- Cali likes me but not as much. Still, she's a fine little kitty and a decent fuzzball around the place, fun to play with -- she's now learned the difference between claw-play and non-claw. Cats can be taught this.
They got pretty scared, however the cat ran up a tree,it was very funny, I would like to think they might have soiled themselves.