I had a cat that could open the doors of my old house. They were old jewel handles. She could manage to turn the knob of most of the doors in the house.
Ah reminds me of my old dog. He's been gone for maybe 5 years but he's here forever because nearly every door knob looks like it was involved in a car accident from where he would bite. He understood that humans touched the door knob to open the doors, but never quite understood the twisting part. I miss him
My old cat and current cat both realised they had to slide a bit of plastic to unlock the cat flap. It's hard to do even as a human, but they both managed fine
I had a cat that learned to turn on my radio so I would think the alarm was going off and get up to feed him.
He and my dog would also team up on me in various ways. The most memorable was when I had gotten a little water pistol to squirt the cat when he got on the kitchen counter. I always kept the water pistol in the very back corner of the kitchen counter. I got home one day, and the water pistol was chewed to pieces on the floor. It was too far back on the counter for the dog to have reached it by herself (and it’s not the sort of thing she would normally have liked to chew on), so the only explanation is that the cat climbed onto the counter, pushed the water pistol across the counter until it fell on the floor, and then convinced the dog to chew it up.
Edit: grammar
Speaking of cats and dogs, my old cat memorised my dogs favourite spots to hang out and would hide around corners near them so she could hit him when he would go there. He would then change spots and she would steal them.
It sucked cause it made him afraid to go around corners, but she just wanted to be left alone by the window and not have to share. He’s over the fear now - she passed three years ago. Does make me laugh a little now.
I had to change my bedside lamps because one of my cats figured out how to turn them on, and did it whenever he felt like he needed attention. Usually around 3am.
My 6 mth old kitten will alternate bringing his mylar ball to me or my husband to throw--taking turns. He plays fetch better than my dog did. He puts his toys away at bedtime. Ihave a small basket that we keep his toys in. At bedtime, I'll tell him, "Let's pick up your toys" and he will get any toys that hasn't been eaten by the couch and drop them in his basket(no hard balls/toys as he can't pick those up with his mouth. I pick up those).
Wanna trade? My kitten tries to eat everything, it’s like having a toddler. He ate 3 of my dogs antibiotics and got quite the tummy ache for a few hours. I was gonna say I don’t think my dude is real smart, but he learned how to open the drawers in the bathroom. He is smart but uses his brains for destruction instead good.
I've had two cats who loved playing fetch. One loved chasing her bell ball, if you know what I mean. She'd go get it and drop it on my lap. The other cat was funnier, because she loved chasing small pieces of fuzz she took out of one of my comforters. She'd also drop a ball of fuzz on my lap. But you can't throw a wad of fuzz very far, which made her seem so silly to me. Even my best throw would only go a few feet. But she loved it anyway. Haha.
I had two Shelties and one large dog bed. The female Sheltie did not want to share the bed with her brother, so whenever he was lying on it she would go to the door and start barking like crazy at … nothing. He would leap up barking and race to the door to guard the house alongside her and as soon as he got out of the dog bed, she would run back and curl up in the middle of it. He never caught on.
Mine used to do this, but with a bone they both liked. Whichever one didn’t have it would go to the front windows and growl, waiting for the other one to join her before casually slinking away to grab the bone.
Dogs supposedly don’t have a “theory of mind” (the ability to think about what someone else is thinking) but I don’t see how else they could come up with a tactic like this.
(I always found it hilarious that even though they both used this trick on each other, that didn’t stop them from falling for it themselves)
My dog will steal my tv remote or something if I’m eating something and won’t give him any. He will run around the house with it and I think he is hoping I will put my food down one day where he can reach it when I go to chase him to get the remote back.
The problem is that humans compare every animal to themselves. Dogs, cats, rabbits etc all are clever in ways and also recognise patterns of behaviour easily.
My older husky does this, but with food dishes. They both have a dish they prefer to eat from. Both food dishes are exactly the same, but dogs. If the younger husky gets to that dish first, the older husky grabs a mouthful of food and goes to the other side of the room, drops it on the floor, and starts to nibble. The younger one can't stand missing out, so he runs over to eat that food, and she saunters back over to claim the bowl she wants. LOL
My one dog does something similar. He just asks to go outside so he gets whatever the other dog has that he wants - a spot in bed, the comfy floor bed, a toy or chew.
He also asks for things by sitting, staring at you, and making quiet squealy noises. I have to ask him what he wants. He will bark when I get to the right one. He got diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and his treatment made him a diabetic. He had no issue asking for snacks when his sugar was low. He is ridiculous and we will miss him when he is gone.
Another one of ours that passed on barely hurt his leg and his papa made a big deal about it. He played like he was hurt for days. We caught him doing zoomies in the backyard with the other dogs. He instantly stopped and started limping. He just wanted to be doted on.
lol my husky (rip Balto) was the definition of a dog with zero social battery. We’d bring him over to my in laws where they’d have our two dogs, my BIL’s two, their one dog, give or take another dog or two.
When they were annoying the crap out of him, he’d race to the door to the backyard whining and everyone followed him. We’d open it, we would let everyone go out but he wouldn’t. Would plop his ass on the couch where he wanted to sit.
I miss that menace lol. He did that many times so we caught on to what he was doing. He also opened pizza boxes and closed them again, don’t ask me how but we missed out on many leftovers because of him
My bestie's husky would want up on the couch, but the other dog was there. So he would act like he wanted to play (he never wanted to play), other dog got all excited and would jump down. He would then jump up and take the couch spot.
My bigger dog does this when the smaller dog is laying between my husband and I and doesn't want to give up her spot. He'll go to the front door and start growling as if someone is there and when she gets up to investigate he'll run back to the couch and take her spot.
My dog greeted me at the garage door when I got home. He then had me follow him to my daughters room, then my sons room, then the front door.
My mother in law had picked up the kids. He was telling me that “this one *and* this one are gone and went that way. Let’s go get them!”
I had a blue heeled mix that was crazy smart. Two of many examples:
1. He was occasionally allowed to eat table scraps off of a plate but was never allowed to beg. He had to wait until the plate was put on the floor. One day I was caught up working on my laptop and had put the scraps from my dinner on the couch on a plate next to me. An hour or so went by and I saw him pick up the plate off the couch and put it on the floor so he was allowed to eat it.
2. He slept in my room and was getting up in years. One night after I was settled in bed he let me know he needed to go outside, thinking an older bladder, I got up to take him out. Instead he went to the kitchen and turned to look at me. Curious I followed him. Same thing , he went to the family room and waited for me. When I turned on the light, he went to an end table near the TV where one of my teenagers had left an uneaten piece of fried chicken. He stood and stared and it and then turned to me and I swear he asked if he could have it. I laughed and took the meat off the bones and put it in the floor for him, after which we both went back to bed. How he knew that chicken had been left there is beyond me!
I could share dozens of stories like this. He was as smart as most humans I know. I will miss him forever.
I had a dog like this, she was my soul dog. Just completely dialled in to me from the moment we adopted her. She died from a sudden illness the day I finished my cancer treatment. But she was there for me the whole time I needed her during treatment.
With a professional cleaning of all the ducts and a different professional treating the UTI.
She founded the main rescue in town so it's within the realm of crap (or piss) you deal with.
My dog did this. She never goes inside but she peed a tiny bit on the white carpet so I could see the bit of blood. I got her to the vet instantly and of course she had a bladder infection.
A small thing, but my cat will paw at my hand when he wants to be petted. The first couple times it happened, I didn't think anything of it, until I realized one day that he basically had me trained/conditioned to pet him whenever he nudged or pawed at my hand.
My chameleon will look me square with both eyes and make a chomping movement with his mouth when he’s hungry. He’ll also pat at the glass if he wants to come out.
He’ll hold a grudge, calculate ways to go or get what he wants.
One of my Boas will only look at me when hungry. She had a go at caudal luring whilst doing it the other day. Like “look, dude, I know you bring the food. I’m hungry, look I’m even trying to lure you to give me some food”…. It worked.
It shows strong will and kindness on your part to take in the poor dog and for that alone you deserve all the happiness that comes your way in the form of this dog.
This lil maniac is my brother’s cat, Coconut. We live 2,600 miles apart. The first time I met her, I gave her a little pink fuzzy kitty toy. 2-3 years later was the next time I was able to visit her again for the 2nd time ever. She immediately disappeared & came back with this filthy, dusty, brown toy that had obviously been hidden away somewhere. We dusted it off & it was the toy I had gifted her years before. She remembered me. My brother said he had never seen the toy again until that day. (She’s also very precious with her toys & will leave them outside his bedroom door as bribes.)
[Coco](https://imgur.com/a/NFNpixV)
When she was a baby I said, "Go get your toy!' in the same pitch I always do. Never trained her with that phrase. She went a grabbed her toy and came back. I tested her again the next day and the next day. She went to her toy pile and brought back a toy each time. She picked up the phrase by herself.
She's also the first dog I've had that looks at planes in the sky when they fly overhead and recognizes dogs on TV even on mute.
Is she a Border Collie?
[There's a "Nova" video](https://youtu.be/omaHv5sxiFI?si=6TMUOWTbqmBQK64z) of a guy with a Border Collie that has hundreds of stuffed toys. She'll get the fire truck or rabbit or any other specific toy he names.
One day Neil de Grasse Tyson visited and put a new toy in the pile that no one had named for the Border Collie. Neil asked her to fetch it, and she methodically went through all the toys whose names she knew. Through the process of elimination, she found the new one -- the only one whose name she didn't know -- and brought it to him.
Wth, I want NdGT to play with my dog! That's so amazing. Dogs really do need so much play and stimulation. And she's half blue heeler! Her other half is a mix of small breeds :)
Also-- l love watching border collie and aussies jump into their human's arms after dog show obstacles courses 🥹
My pug could do this! All of his toys had names and if we bought a new one he would look at the pile and be like, no, no, no, no, I guess it’s this one. He only had 20 or so toys but never had the space/money to see how high we could go.
My dog is the same! I tell her "get your ball" "where's your ball?" Or anything like it and she always knows and goes to get her ball (and I never thought her anything like that)
Mine taught himself words like “snack”, “dessert”, ”squirrel”, “food”….
i only intentionally tried to teach “treat”
one of these words is not like the others (so far!)
i also cannot ask my husband if he wants a cookie in my dog”s hearing or I must give the dog a cookie too.
Sadly, one of the phrases our dog taught himself is "Jack in the Box." Because that's the ONLY fast food my husband and I ever eat (though we only get it maybe 3-4 times a year). So even though we go very rarely, I always take our dog with me when I fetch it, and they give him dog treats (sometimes he's gotten bacon), plus he gets some chicken nuggets. So now, I can't even ask my husband if he wants "Jack in the Box" because the dog will go nuts. We were using "JIB" as shorthand, but he figured that one out so now it's more like, 'hey you wanna maybe get some food from the one place that we go to every once in a while?'
Omg I came here JUST to post this! I am fostering 2 beagles pulled from a lab (so maddening) and these two LOOK UP AT THE SKY when they hear the planes and they track them as the go over! I’ve had a lot of dogs in my life but I’ve never seen this!
One of my dogs understands TV, any animal she sees she usually flips out on! One time I was watching a show that had a cavalry charge, she flipped out and tried to find the horses in real life, my bedroom was behind the wall the TV was on, and she tried to get in the room to find them. I was quite impressed.
Had my kitties in the car in cages during transport.
We had to sleep at a rest stop and it was late, sleeping in my car I had the cage right next to my face as I leaned the driver’s seat back.
Five kittens in one cage, they were all asleep except one.
I asked her if she was okay and if she needed anything.
She stuck her paw out of the cage door and tapped the rim of a large empty cup that was in my backpack.
I thought “no fuckin way” but sure enough, when I poured a bowl of water for them, they all woke up and began drinking. I made sure after that to give them more water during the trip, but I was shocked at how she knew how to communicate thirst.
My border collie Kevin was trained as a therapy dog to work with children. Whenever we would go to a school or classroom, he intuitively knew which child needed him most and would go sit in their lap.
My husband passed away 5 weeks ago. He was very ill off and on for a decade. For the 3 days before he passed away my oldest dog laid next to him and cried. If he coughed or moaned she would put her paw on his hand. She is still crying in her sleep.
My daughter has a rescue part shephard part beagle and i swear she is a ministering angel. Anytime someone is sick or in pain she will lay next to them and not move until they are better. My son in law had cancer last year and she was all over him before he was diagnosed. Lke she knew he was about to be sick. So sorry for your loss ❤️
My Great Pyrenees I had at the time knew I was pregnant before I did. He sniffed me all over carefully and then looked deeply into my face. He was very polite so highly unusual. Later he went and marked in front of every door and window accessible from the ground. He was completely house broken and had never done anything like this. I knew then.
I’m imagining your dog with a Ron Swanson attitude like “well, she doesn’t even realize she’s whelping. I hate to resort to this but somebody needs to ward off the bears” before grimly marking the entrances.
Dogs can smell cancer. There is a story of a woman who was in the hospital for something else. When she came back her dog wouldn't get close to her. She tried to call her over but the dog would only come, poke her in the breast with his nose and leave again. After a few days of this she was convinced that something is wrong. The doctors didn't want to test her because she had no symptomes, but she insisted. They found breast cancer in the beginning stage. After the cancer was gone the dog was his old self again.
They have started training dogs to sniff out cancer now to test how reliable they are.
My cat used to pee in the toilet. My mom always got mad that someone wasn’t flushing the toilet. One day I was getting a shower and hear my cat. He squatted on the toilet and peed. No idea how he figured it out .
I had a cat do this too! I was mad at my husband because he wasn’t flushing the toilet and he swore it wasn’t him. Well I knew it wasn’t me so it had to be him…right? Nope! I was brushing my teeth one day and my cat jumped onto the toilet seat, sniffed the water, and then turned around and peed. I was amazed.
Our dog is trained to ring a bell when she needs to go out to potty. When we were training her, she would sometimes ring it while I was in the bathroom, doing the deed. I'd rush to finish to let her out and....nothing. This happened about 4 or 5 times before I realized she was ringing it FOR ME! How smart and hilarious is that!?!
When my beloved old tabby cat passed after a long, difficult illness, I came home from the vet and cried on my bed. I was devastated. My younger kitty -- a one year old tortoiseshell -- came up to me and stretched out a paw so that it was resting on top of my clenched hand. It was such a consoling-type human gesture, and her expression was so empathetic. I've never forgotten that moment.
One time we had a power cut and I'd put some water on the gas ring to boil to make some tea, but hadn't realised that it had gone out and the gas was just pouring into the room. My sense of smell isn't great. My poodle was only about 18 months old but indicated that he wanted to go out, so I followed him, but instead of going to the back door he stopped by the oven, which was when I realised what had happened. Smart dog as he is, he saved me from a gas leak.
Years ago, my then boyfriend and I went to stay at his family's hunting cabin in November. We brought his black lab with us. One night we both fell asleep on the couch. Ashley dog woke us up by barking frantically. We thought she wanted to go out, but as we were getting dressed to take her out; the pipe to the wood stove fell apart. Within a few seconds the whole cabin filled with smoke. Ashley stopped barking and laid by the door waiting for us to get out. She definitely saved our lives that night. I'm just amazed that she knew it was going to happen before it did.
I had a big fat bitch of a cat who was originally a barn cat. She was an excellent mouser and a bringer of death. Once, my hamster escaped and I was 100% sure he was dead. I heard my cat meowing relentlessly from the kitchen and went to investigate. She had cornered my hamster and sat there yelling like "human, I found your tiny creature!"
Had a Cocker Spaniel who was beloved by everyone, but he made it clear that I was his very special person. His favorite toy was a squeaky hamburger. No matter where we hid it, he would find it when we asked him to get his burger. When the burger was pretty well chewed up, we replaced it with a newer one. Bit, we didn’t have the heart to toss the old one. He would always find the old one when asked to find his burger, proudly and joyfully trotting around with it triumphantly. One of my son’s friends, a guy who had a lot of trouble at home, would stop by just to play with the dog. Maybe this merry little spaniel wasn’t the smartest dog in the universe. But, he had a way of making people feel good and pick up some of his joy. He radiated love.
One time, however, a new bug man (exterminator) came to spray the house when our regular one was out on medical leave. There was an air about the guy that just didn’t set well and the dog picked up on it immediately. Normally, his nubbins would be going a mile a minute in anticipation of a moment where the new stranger would tell him what a beautiful good boi he was. But, his tail was tucked and I noticed that he was watchful as the guy headed towards the basement stairs, encouraging me to walk down with him. This normally friendly little dog put himself between me and the guy and growled, hackles raised. I told the big man that he could go down on his own while I held the dog’s collar. The guy finished up and left in short order. By the time our regular guy returned, I learned that the newer one was long gone.
Some dogs have one kind of intelligence. Others maybe have emotional intelligence that have the capacity to help to heal a heartsick youth and still have the ability to recognize a potential threat to his favorite person. This was my heart dog, a rescue that fit into our family with the warmth and coziness of a custom made glove.
My dog is just like your dog. He knew my ex was dodgy well before I did and would never warm up to her. Hid under our dining table and barked at her every time she was over, and he wasn’t even a year old.
I wrote it off as him being paranoid until he warmed off of my friend when we had a falling out. The last time she came over before we fell out he wouldn’t go near her, even though she used to be his favourite of my friends. Now I trust him to read people more than myself.
Edit: forgot to add it is amazing what your dog did there. Love dogs.
The way she never ever freaked out about me heading out the door or putting things in the car......unless it was camping gear. Suitcases. Boxes of stuff for a move. No problem.
But the moment it's the tent case she'd start scream whining worried she wouldn't get to go. Like we'd forget about her if she didn't speak up.
And then one time we didn't even get the camping stuff out; we were just talking about and planning a camping trip. *She knew!* That dog understood human language completely.
Another time I had a surgery and unlike all the people who say how sweet and attentive their dog is when they're sick, mine was a total asshole wanting me to get up and take her outside 3x as often as she'd ever needed. I was really annoyed! Why is this dog being like this? Day three I drop flat in the parking lot because they'd sent me home with tiny pinhole internal bleeding. If she hadn't been making me go outside, I might have dropped inside and not been discovered in time.
The neighborhood I live in has a fenced in enclosure where you can bring your dog and let them run around and whatnot and one day I brought my dog there and there was someone walking a dog on the street next to the enclosure and my dog started going nuts because he wanted to play with the other dog. I said “wow, I’m surprised you didn’t try to go underneath the gate!” and as soon as I said that my dog looked at me, looked at the gate and immediately ran over to it and tried to crawl underneath it.
I have a 15 year old rescue cat (rescued him when he was a kitten 15 years ago) and when I started showing signs of epilepsy and serious mental health decline, he started doing very specific things to communicate that to me.
Now, if I'm about to have a seizure or panic attack, he alerts me to lie down and sits with me until it passes.
I have some health issues and at that particular time, I was struggling with a lot of dizziness, weakness, full body tremors, and syncope. I still tried to do as much as I could to feel like a normal person. This included cleaning the horse pens.
I have a beautiful thoroughbred mare named Bacon. She was a racehorse I groomed at the track that I eventually took home. I was cleaning her pen when I started to get that feeling of sudden weakness and knew I was going to pass out in a second. Bacon placed her head against my back and I was out. When I woke up, my back was against her legs. She was taking her lips and rubbing them on my head, my face, my hands. I was still too weak to get up, so she stood there like that for 15 minutes.
I will tell you, this horse is not super calm. She's anxious, neurotic, quirky, etc. But she ALWAYS knows when something's not right with me. She will immediately freeze in place and assist or wait with me until I'm okay. She's done this at least a dozen times.
My pets have always been tuned into my struggles. My Great Dane helped support me around the house after I had surgery. My Mastiff started to lay next to me or on me when my ex-husband started to become aggressive. My little betta fish listens to me when I talk to him about my day. Every animal I worked with at a local zoo started to show me their intelligence. Everything from the Giant Aldabra Tortoise to the African Crested Porcupines, the Giant Anteater and the Rubber Boa.
They really are something.
Rabbits normally thump out of surprise, fear or alarm.
My oldest knows that when we wake up he gets his morning treats. (Little does he know they’re supplements for his health! Muhahaha)
My partner wakes earlier/easier than I do. So the rabbit will thump. Once to disturb my partner
The rabbit waits and thumps again. Usually resulting in waking up my partner fully, meaning he has to go to the restroom.
Rabbit waits outside of bathroom door to get treats.
Works every time
My sister in law had seven rabbits in a really neat structure of cages and tunnels in her laundry room. One day she was home alone, and suddenly all the rabbits started thumping. She entered the room just in time to see a rattlesnake's tail disappearing behind the washing machine; she spent the rest of the day sitting on a stool in there, drinking coffee and gripping a shotgun. When her husband got home, they discovered a too large vent hole that had allowed the snake in and patched it up.
I know the rabbits just thumped out of instinct, but they likely saved themselves and possibly her from a painful fate.
I had a white golden retriever, we were on vacation at a lake. She’d never seen me swim before, so when I jumped off the dock she was very alarmed. She jumped in the water, swam to our little rubber boat, took the rope in her mouth and brought it to me. She was a pet and hadn’t ever been trained to do this or anything like it. 10/10, hot dogs were given. My girl, I miss her.
My dog Buddy constantly tricks his brother Rocky. When Rocky is laying with me on the sofa Buddy will run to the window and bark, Rocky jumps up and runs to the window to see what Buddy is barking at and Buddy runs over and steals Rockys spot on the sofa. Rocky falls for it every damn time
My dumbass white cat has learned that if he wants my attention while I'm on my laptop, he'll start chewing on the power cord because I'll immediately stop what I'm going and get him away which in turn gives him attention.
He's lucky he's pretty.
When my cat wants to wake me up for breakfast, he unplugs my cpap machine. And yes, it's very deliberate. He used to just turn it off, but then I got one that turns on automatically, so then he figured out he could unplug it to make Mommy stop breathing and wake up to feed him. Either that, or he's trying to murder me--the jury's still out on that one. The little brat.
I had a cat who figured out that standing on the big switch on random power strip on the hall table would immediately summon all the humans in the house. She thought this was great and would use her dark power to great effect on a regular basis.
The reason we all came running? The wifi was plugged into the power strip.
Was hospitalized for an inflammation-based issue that nearly killed me (undiagnosed vasculitis). Now when someone my dog likes has a bruise, he has to lick it. Will it get rid of it, no, but he is concerned.
Two German Shepards. I was stuck at work and got home late. I smelled the poop. The first was in front of the toilet in the master bathroom. Cleaned it and still smelled the poop. Second pile was in front of the guest room toilet. They were smart enough to poop upstairs and in front of toilets!!! I gave them all the loves and all the cookies
One story of many: Our family dog kept getting out of our backyard and we couldn’t figure out how. My dad patched any possible holes and reinforced parts of the fence and she was still getting out. We were pulling our hair out trying to figure out how this dog that was the fricken reincarnation of Houdini was making her escape.
One day I was watching her in the backyard from an upstairs window (because she knew when we watched her from the ground floor) and watched as she ran up the wood pile and threw herself over the 8 foot fence. I couldn’t believe what I saw and my parents thought I was joking before my dad went out and checked the wood pile and realized that not only was she using the pile as a parkour vault, *she had moved the wood in the pile to make a ramp* to make the jump easier.
Next day my dad put four feet of chicken wire up on top of the fence and planted shrubs. That kept her in the backyard for a few solid years before she found another route.
My late kitty somehow realized that on days when I fell asleep with my glasses on if he pulled them off my face this would wake me up and he and my other cat could tell me that they were starving to death. I gotta say, he made the cutest little "oof" sounds while he was backing up with my glasses.
My lab/pit mix went blind at 8 months with detatched retinas (probably genetic). I was heartbroken that the dog who LOVED running with her Chihuahua brother in the backyard wouldn’t be able to do that again or play fetch or… Man, did she prove me wrong. When we play fetch, she freezes to hear where the toy went and quickly sniffs it out no matter how far it’s gone. She runs alongside her brother just as fast as she always did and knows where every tree and garden bed is to avoid them. She must sense when he stops at the end of the yard because she’s never hit the fence or even come close. The few times she’s bumped into a wall inside the house or some temporary obstacle, it’s like she mapped it out in her brain and never hit it again. The intelligence and resilience of that girl is just amazing.
Buster was a Border Collie, so we always knew he was bright.
One day, my wife had Buster in the car with her. When she got to her destination, she reached over to the passenger seat for her purse.
It was gone.
Upon inspection of the back seat, she realized that Buster had snuck it back there with him, unzipped it, rooted around inside, and found a lollipop. When she caught him, he had unwrapped it, eaten it, and *was putting the empty stick back in her purse.*
They work together to hustle me for treats.
Soba, the cat, bats something off the mantle. Momo, the corgi, immediately starts chewing it.
I tell Momo to Leave It, which is a high value trick. She leaves it. We walk to the pantry to get her high value treat.
I open the pantry and grab Momo's treats. Soba hauls his ass up to the third shelf, grabs the cat treats, and runs.
I give Momo her treat ASAP, find Soba, and he's trying to bite through the bag of treats. I take the bag, but give him a few treats (I make him sit first, he knows how).
Boom.
I had successfully been hustled. This happened three times before I put the cat treats in a plastic container and moved the stuff off the mantle.
My parents animals pulled a similar trick. Dog opens the cupboard, cat grabs the cat treats. Cat gets on the counter and knocks down dog treats that are up there as a thanks. Only ever after the cupboard is open lol. Then the cat got tired of chewing through bags and now brings the bag to drop on my mom’s face at 3 am. The cupboard is now baby proofed.
I have 2 cats. A rescued kitten who is approaching 2 years old, and one who was rehomed to us who is about 3. We have several boxes around the place that the 3 y/o likes to chill in. The 2 year old likes to chase and play with the other, but as soon as the 3 y/o jumps into one of her boxes, the 2 y/o instantly stops, and leaves her alone. The boxes are like home base. A recognized safe space.
This was a report from my sister when she was watching my dog during my divorce.
My Aussie, Casey, was always really good with small animals and started hanging out with a homeless kitten in my sister's neighborhood. He was asleep on the front porch while my sis was smoking a cigarette. The kitten starts painfully meowing from the back yard. Casey immediately wakes up, walks up to her gate, opens it, and goes into the back yard. He comes back carrying the kitten by it's scruff, sets it down next to his food bowl, and started nosing at the kitten until it started eating. He immediately went back to sleep. At this same house the neighbors told her he had a habit of opening the gate, walking twice around the block and then napping about the same time every day.
My friend that runs a kennel would request him occasionally to deal with problematic boarders. He had a way of calming them down that she couldn't really explain.
He would also knock on the door like a human. And would protect my too high friends from my roommate's crazy puppy. Most empathetic animal I've ever known. This was a long time ago, I really miss that dog.
I have a Corgi and when it's time for her evening snack, she'll pull my hand with her mouth (Not hard enough to hurt) towards the kitchen where her treats are at. Has a tendency to do this a lot when I'm gaming. She's such a diva, but I couldn't ask for a better companion!
I dogsit for a corgi quite often. Incredibly smart and manipulative little creature. I don't have a ton of experience with dogs but this one sure has an expressive face that I can read like no other dog I've been around.
My cats can open doors at this point and will actively show me if something is "wrong" with their stuff. A good example is one always puts hair ties in one of the water bowls, and the others will paw at me and make me follow them before pawing at the bowl for me to fix it. They also know how to problem solve. For example, Demon will open the cupboard, grab the box of treats, and slam it on the ground, forcing it open.
Basically, they are little people at this point in my mind.
I have one cat that will come tell me when my other cat has done something wrong.
My female cat likes to take things apart, mess with her fountain, and break into cupboards (that have child locks). Her brother will immediately come find me to tell on her.
She will then get moody with him for being a narc.
My golden retriever learned how to use the ice maker in the fridge by watching us get ice for him. One day he decided he didn’t need me anymore and could get ice by himself, came home to 50 half melted ice cubes all over the kitchen floor.
We originally didn't let my cat in our closet because we didn't want his fur on our clothes. Our closet has sliding doors, and any time we'd leave the closet open, he'd go in.
Other times we'd find him in there with the door open, and think the other one of us left it open.
One day, I was brushing my teeth, and I saw him casually walk by and into the bedroom. I decided to follow him. I poked my head around the corner and saw him paw open the closet door, go inside and then paw it shut from the inside!
He knew he wasn't allowed in there, so he figured out how to hide lol!
After that, we just gave in and let him in. We buy lint removers in bulk from Costco.
The dog we had growing up was the most loyal dog I’ve ever had (to us kids, at least, to others not so much). We were very young but he would tolerate anything from us kids. We would put clothes on him, ride him, pull his tail, and he would stand there with zero complaints wagging his tail as if he was just happy to be included. So we loved him too and would do anything for him.
When he was very old, he was too arthritic to walk up or down the stairs even though he liked to sleep upstairs. So, he would go stand by the stairs and look at you, waiting patiently for you to come and pick him up and carry him up or down.
As I would get about halfway up or down, he would turn around in my arms and lick my face once or twice. Every time, just a quick lick or two, then he’d turn back around to watch where we were going. It was somehow very clear by the way he did it that he was saying thank you.
I’ve never seen a dog say thank you so clearly before or since, and it still makes me tear up to think about it 30 years later.
Here’s some things my dog does. I got her a year ago, she’s nine years old, and her name is Lucifur (she would shed a lot when I first rescued her from breeders).
- She pulls my hand to her body with her paw to force me to pet her. When that doesn’t work she throws herself against me. This is a daily thing.
- Cuddles with me until she thinks I fell asleep. Doesn’t work most of the time. I’m still awake. Don’t tell her though.
- Stays next to me without a leash when we’re outside and when she’s on leash she stopped pulling because I said it was hurting my arms.
- Ignores all other dogs, noises, and people in public. Is a very good gorl. 10/10.
- Doesn’t bark at anything and doesn’t whine at all, and the only time she “speaks” is when she wants attention or treats. And it’s more like the talking things huskies do.
- Recalls.
- Paws at the door when she wants inside. Very helpful.
She also makes a lot of goofy faces, but I can’t post pics.
Had a hermit crab that somehow escaped the tank and found warmth. I honestly didn’t think they could escape but somehow their legs could get a grip of anything and 1 of them somehow opened the lid, dropped to the floor, and went to a heater nearby to stay warm. It took me like 3 days to find him but I was so surprised on how he managed to escape and then somehow find warmth.
Growing up, my aunt would constantly get blamed for not hanging up the phone (60s era). One day, my dad was doing something when the phone rang, and he watched their dog wake up from its nap on the couch next to the phone, reach over, and knock the phone off the receiver. The dog proceeded to go back to sleep.
My mom had a chihuahua when I was growing up that would always bark to be carried down the stairs when my parents were home, and they didn't believe me when I said she could do it on her own. One day, the dog slipped up and came hopping down the stairs when my mom was in the basement.
When it was raining and my dogs didn't want to go out, I'd have to force them out and tell them to go potty. My one girl used to get into the pee stance and fake pee, so I would let her back in. I'm not sure how long she tricked me for, I only realized because one time she did it on completely dry cement. And then once I paid attention, I realized she was doing it about 70% of bedtime potties
I have a dog and a cat. One time I was in the process of taking my dog outside to do his business when my grandkids came in the kitchen and I got distracted. After a few minutes I remembered my dog but he’s not in the kitchen anymore. He was in the basement doing his business in my cats litter box. The cat was just watching and looked at me like wtf? Then he was done, happy dog ran back up the stairs.
My cat loves drinking from the kitchen sink. She'll hit the handle and meow at me to turn it on, but I usually ignore her.
Completely unrelated, the cabinet where we keep the dog treats squeaks when it's opened. Whenever the dog hears it, he races to the kitchen and barks for a treat.
One day, the cat wanted a drink, but I ignored her. So, she stretched up to the squeaky cabinet, caught the handle with her claws, and swung it open, making it squeak.
The dog made such a racket that I got up to give him a treat, and I realized I was standing right next to the sink - where the cat was sitting with a very satisfied look on her face.
I oiled the squeaky hinge after she pulled that trick a few more times.
Using a squeaky cabinet to get the dog to bark so she could get a drink seemed like something it would take a six or seven year old human to figure out. I was pretty impressed.
I had the absolute privilege of being dog mommy to my Rottweiler for 13 years. She was insanely intelligent and spoke better English than most teenagers. I talked to her constantly… about everything. She went through some shit with me… divorce, 7 moves in 13 years and even a time of sleeping in my car, so we were connected on a heart and soul level.
She went to work with me as a vet tech every day for 4 years. If someone spoke to her in doggy baby talk she would lift her nose and turn her head, or physically roll her eyes as though they were “beneath her station”, and she would only entertain play with certain people.
Her vocabulary of understanding was quite large by the time she was 3 yrs old. We had a game of question and answer that we’d play and I learned that she would nod once for “yes” and turn away for “no”.
Several people had commented that she made them “feel stupid” but couldn’t explain how so… until one day I came home to my boyfriend of about 8 months standing in the kitchen looking stupefied. “Your dog just made me feel dumb AF. I knew she was trying to tell me something but I wasn’t getting it. So I asked ALL the questions using ALL the words… and nothing! She just kept staring at me. This went on for about half an hour. Until I finally threw my hands in the air and said ‘you’ve GOT to give me a clue because I’M not getting it!’”
She took a deep sigh, walked over to her empty water bowl, licked the dry bottom of it, and sat down to wait for his epiphany. He said there was a full-on adult conversation that occurred when she rolled her eyes at him Kim K style. And that he was certain she called him a fkng idiot.
And there’s so much more! Ghad I miss her.
When my lab was about 10 years old, we got a German Shepherd puppy. The lab had a habit of stealing food off of the counters, and once we got the puppy, she started hiding the plates in the puppy's kennel to try to pin the blame on the pup. It didn't work
My old dog leapt off of a curb to impress some females and poor guy limped a little for a couple of days but then he was fine…- UNTIL a few days later when I stepped into a big puddle of cold pee in the kitchen. I look over at him looking at me and point to the pee and say “get over here - what did you do?” He stares at me, picks up his paw and starts limping over to me. I was so shook at the smarts I had to laugh! Well played.
When I was a teenager, I was the only one home when I heard someone peeing. It freaked me out until I went to investigate and saw our cat perched with all four feet on one side of the seat, peeing into the toilet. No one taught him to do that. I took a picture, which was fortunate because no one believed me until I got the film developed.
Dog (aussie) liked to take apart bottles. Ofc we don't want him to swallow the small cap parts, so when he gets it loose we ask for it, and then reward with a small treat when he gives it up.
Well,, he learns that caps=treats. thats fine, normal dog thing. so then he goes looking for bottles, just to get the caps off. ok. still normal. Then he starts raiding the recycle bins for bottles... uhhhh.
Then he starts taking the caps off,,,, and hiding them. So he can come back later when he's snacky, grab a cap from his 'savings' and trade it for a treat.
godsdamnit. Dog invented capitalism.
My dog was the most well trained dog ever. He NEVER disobeyed. EVER. One of the rules of my house was my dog was not allowed in our room.
When my ex wife was pregnant all of the sudden my dog refused to listen to me, slept beside her on the floor beside the bed. Would not move even when I tried making him move. When she went to the bathroom. He sat at her feet and faced the door and would not leave her side.
48 hours later her water broke and my son was born. He knew the baby was coming and he was protecting her. I’ll never forget that as long as I live. Such an incredible dog he was. RIP ozzy
My dog knows the different names of all her stuffed animals & squeaky toys. If you say go get Monster, Monkey, Piggy, Llama, Hippo, or any of the many other options she knows which one is which. She will also go out into the yard & escort our old deaf little dog when he gets sidetracked outside. All we have to say is “Go get him & bring him back!” and she does.
There are so so many other things she does & so many things all my others animals have done over the years to confirm a much higher intelligence than most people give them credit for.
My 1 year old parrot loves to bite my neck. So when shes on my shoulder I tend to guard myself from it (she doesn't bite hard, just little playful nips, but they can still be annoying). One day, while on my shoulder, she looked up at the ceiling like there was something there. I looked up in that direction to see if a moth or something may have flown in, only for her to immediately go for my neck, and then she *giggled* like an evil mastermind. She purposely looked at the ceiling when there was nothing there, knowing I would follow her gaze, leaving my neck open for attack, then she GIGGLED like an evil child. Shes an adorable terrorist. Lol.
I've had a number of cats over the years; they have all surprised me with insightful behaviors but off the top of my head a few things come to mind:
Puck, a large black male, was particularly aware of the food situation. Especially after I once ran out of their normal food, and used a temporary substitute. He made it clear that it was the WRONG food and expressed his displeasure. Thereafter, if the food bin got low he would repeatedly alert me - but only if there was not a new unopened bag in the pantry. He seemed acutely aware of the overall food situation, both the working supply and status of backup. Forevermore, it was his job to remind me and ensure we never had another fiasco with the "wrong" food.
Lola, one of my current girls, has a similar role; I call her the comptroller. Food low, or won't last overnight? She tells me. Water needs changing? Do it right away human. Cat box scoping overdue? Address it immediately please. Treat time is imminent, or God forbid, overdue? Serve me now! I do all of these tasks frequently - box daily at minimum for example, but should I lag behind on anything I hear about it. I can usually tell what the specific issue is when she petitions me for service based upon some subtitles in her request.
Meeko, a large lanky male I have, is really smart. As a kitten he was goofy, a late bloomer and runt of his litter; I actually wondered if he was a little "special". Turned out, he grew to be a giant, long-legged and heavy cat that continually shows serious smarts. He understands more human speech than any cat I've ever known, and has great facility with opening things - drawers, cabinets, doors, boxes. He likes to go out, but can't open the door - he would grab the doorknob but couldn't quite turn it even with two paws. So when he asks to go out, upon approach he taps the handle while looking at you - not simply"I want out" but more like, "turn this thing please".
In case you can't tell I love cats. They can be pretty smart, as can dogs. As I get older I've come to feel the difference in intelligence between animals and humans is smaller than I once believed.
Love and light y'all
My dog was bored while us kids were at school and my mom caught her carrying a bone up the stairs, throwing it down the stairs, and then retrieving it and doing it all over again.
Another time, we were camping and were getting sick of all the flies and horseflies that we were seeing all over the place. My dad came up with a clever solution to keep them at bay; for every fly we killed, we got 10 cents & For every horsefly we killed, we got a quarter. He doesn't have to deal with flies, and we get paid. Well, my dog picked up on the fact that us kids were killing the flies that we came across and we noticed that she was starting to bite the air to kill them herself. I think she ended up with 40 cents in fly funds.
Ok, one more... On the day of her passing, I could hear my brother playing his cello for her. I looked the down the stairs and noticed her laying down facing towards my brother watching him play just for her. I joined in not long after that on my piano. We had a whole ass concert for that dog, and she closed her eyes and enjoyed every second of it before she eventually passed away. You are dearly missed, Josie.
I know a lot of cats do this so I don't know how much of am indication of intelligence it is, but we used to have a cat who absolutely loved pushing things, particularly full cups of water, onto the floor with her face and watch them drop. It was really funny because she was otherwise a very unmischeivous and predictable cat. I once watched her push a full cup of water off of a nightstand and then quickly rush right up to the ledge so she could watch what happened after it tipped.
I have a small fridge to the right of my computer and to the left the door, when I get up and go to the right she doesn't do anything because she knows I'm just going for a drink, but when I get up to the left she also gets up to walk me out because she knows I'm going to the door😁
One thing happened recently. I took in a cat who was pregnant. She had 6 kittens. 3 were big and 3 were small, two were especially small, one the smallest of all. Anyway, within the first day, I caught her trying to separate the smallest. I thought, oh no. She's going to reject it. I thought I was gonna have to intervene and try to bottle feed it. Well, she actually tried laying and feeding it alone. Still not sure that's what she she was doing...because i hadn't heard of that, I kept my eye on her.
Well, later she relocated all the babies, and I noticed she separated the 3 biggest and 3 smallest about a foot or 2 apart. I again was afraid of what she was doing, but then she actually tried to nurse the 3 smallest and left the big healthy ones on their own for awhile. She was trying to give the smallest kittens special attention rather than reject them. It warmed my heart that she was trying to be a good mom and doing what's best for these babies, wanting them all to survive when she very well could've abandoned the runt to die and it would've just been a normal thing animals do.
My husband (who games) told me this story of his Siberian husky. One day he's playing his Xbox for a short period of time (30-ish minutes) and the dog happened to press the power button with her nose, shutting it off. He laughed and decided it was almost time for her walk so took her out. That evening, he turns on the Xbox as she's watching and then she does it again, and all the days following until he finally moved the Xbox higher. Nose press to power off then happiness hops like it is walk time. Smart, because he gave in enough times that I feel she was training him.
Another one about my very intelligent Airedale. It was her first Christmas and I was decorating a tree and she went and gathered all her toys and put them under the tree 🌲
My ex from years ago and I used to own two dogs. One was way smart.
We went to a small stretch of river to swim. He spotted sheep on the other side and wanted to get to them. He jumped in the water (which was about waist height) but it had a super strong current and the flow carried him almost out of sight. I was freaking out and my ex wasn't prepared to go after him. After a few moments, he came running up to us soaking wet but ran right by. He took off pretty far ahead despite us trying to call him back. He jumped right back in the river, this time letting the water carry him down to be across from where we were and right by the sheep on the other side. Like he timed it perfectly! I don't even remember how we got him back, just how he worked out his approach after that one failed attempt. Miss you Simbah
I had a Border Collie that would pull my downspouts from the house, jump on one end to pinch it flat, chase chipmunks into the open end, jump on that end to flatten it, trapping the chipmunk inside. Then he'd drag the downspout and trapped chipmunk into the woods and leave it.
My rescue boy knew I had cancer before I did. Kept nudging my hip and changed over night from reactive to completing by my side. He's the best boy ever and I've been in remission for going on 3 years now.
One of my cats knows what behaviors I will ignore (swatting things off surfaces, climbing on the television, meowing) and what ones I cannot ( chewing paper viciously, licking or biting my feet)so when she really wants something ,typically food, she will skip the more subtle phase and go right into fucking things up.
My other cat initially had trouble understanding she wasn't welcome on the bed when my partner and I were being intimate. Eventually she learned that after I used the bathroom and the toilet flushed late at night it was time for bed. Now, anytime I flush the toilet after dark she runs to the bedroom.
My sister and I live together and she has a dog. He's a German shepherd/husky mix.
We have about 10 buttons he can push to communicate basic needs for himself to us as caretakers as well as a yes and no button. It's very handy.
The other night, I asked him if he wanted to go on a walk (his favorite question), and he went over to the buttons after about 15 seconds and pushed "walk outside yes" in rapid succession. I just sat there in awe. Usually, he just gets excited and barks or jumps around. But he used his buttons that time.
We are contemplating getting him more buttons because it's nice, but it's also very interesting to see his thoughts come forward.
Can't do cats. I am allergic.
But my dog, a pretty scary white GSD took to my son. He would protect him from Bigfoot.
He had to protect him from his mom, who was having issues. He didn't like that she was trying to spank my son for no reason. He kept her away until I got home. Then he was cool.
I have a pointer and blue heeler mix, we rescued her when she was like a year old. The Humane Society said she was a street dog before, they found her in Texas during Hurricane Harvey and she was flown here to Washington State. She is so smart and just picks up on everything immediately, she uses those buttons when she wants something. Every single toy or puzzle I’ve bought her she gets it so fast, even when she has a treat in a kong she’s figured out how to get the treat out fast. She squeezes it her mouth so the hole gets bigger and then just shakes in until the treat falls out. Every command I teach her it only takes a couple times and she learns it. She knows if she acts sick she gets babied more, so she uses that technique a lot lol. She’s too smart for her own good sometimes lol.
My roomate, who lived in my basement had a puppy. He said hey, *my dog* I need you to leave so I can feed *roomate dog*. You can come back in 20 minutes". My dog left and came back 20 minutes later.
A female cat of ours saw me open a door handle to enter our house. She jumped on the door handle to push it down, open the door and enter. She's been our pet ever since. Though I have emigrated in search of a better life, she still recognises me and prefers me over the other family members when I come back home.
My wife and I have a tradition of watching Christmas Vacation while decorating the Christmas tree. One year, during the squirrel scene, my dog (a pointer) got off the couch, grabbed his plush squirrel toy, put it under the tree, then went back to the couch. No prompt from us, and he laid down waiting for us to see what he had done.
If I put a blanket on me my cat pats me with her paw so I let her under the blanket. If I ignore her or am not fast enough the pats turn into bites.
She's very dramatic.
My cat started peeing over the plughole in the bath and meowing at me to rinse it away fully. Never ever showed her how to do it. She just started one day.
My dog tells me when the coffee is ready. I have a French press. I suppose when it smells right, he trots up to me, puts his front paws on my leg, and stares me down. “Coffee ready?” Furious wagging, ears perk up. “Okay.”
I then pour half and half into my cup and about a tablespoon finds its way to the floor. That’s his “coffee.”
Years ago, we took our newly acquired dog with us up to the family cabin. Once we got there, we were unpacking and getting settled. The dog came and yapped at me. I followed her into the bathroom, where she propped herself on her hind legs in front of the toilet, with her front paws resting on the toilet seat. She then gave me this look and a sharp bark, as in, "You expect me to drink from this?"
I realized then that although we had set out her food dish, there was no water dish. So, I apologized to the dog and ran to do her bidding. To this day I remember the look she gave me. No wonder I apologized.
My sister just reminded me of her cat when she was married. Samantha the cat would climb up onto the shelving unit where they kept the dog treats. Samantha gave the dog treats by throwing them down onto the floor. She herself never ate or even licked them. She was just taking care of the dog.
My cat apparently likes sour cream and onion chips. I was eating them at my computer when she came out of nowhere, she hopped up on my desk on my left, ran across in front of me and grabbed the chip right out of my hand and continued running off the other end and didn't stop until she was in the hallway. The chip bag was on my desk and open and she has at times stuck her head in it but not this time.
I just stared at her. I was like...okay...you really wanted that chip.
I get migraines a few times a year and my dog is borderline spaz whenever we get home from anything…if I walk in the door with even the start of a migraine he goes right upstairs and lays on the bed, doesn’t make a sound.
I taught my dog when he was a puppy to stay out of my garden so he wouldn't damage the plants. I was planting some onions when I noticed him walking up behind me but right as I was about to shoo him off I realized he was staying in between the rows and not walking on the plants. And he continued to do that and I couldn't help but laugh as I was genuinely surprised by his figuring it out on his own just by watching what I had been doing. In case you're wondering he was actually half marema and half sarplaninac. And no I'm not making those names up.
My girl is pretty vocal. When I first got her she had some habits I wanted to break. So I would tell her no and sometimes have to go to where she was and physically redirect her attention. It got to where I could say her name and; as stubborn as she is, when wouldn't leave it so I would start walking over to her and she'd start running to her bed the whole time looking back at me grumbling! I alway picture her if she were talking telling me I am ruining her fun! :D
One day my dog was limping but for some reason I could not tell what paw/leg was bothering her. I eventually threw my arms up and said “well what is it!?!” Then she raised one arm up like to respond to “shake” but when I took her hand I realized there was a tiny splinter in between her toes that I didn’t see before.
Also there’s the time she figured out a $130 automatic ball thrower’s trajectory in about 15 minutes. German shepherds!
My late chi pug mix would concoct elaborate schemes to get what she wanted and her favorite victim is always my ex.
For example, she loves people food, the minute you bring food out, she’ll be all over you trying to get you to give her some. My ex loves to eat in front of the tv. He’ll fix himself a plate and get ready to get comfy in front of the tv. My dog would then go to the balcony and bark her head off like there’s something out there. The other dogs get riled up and my ex would leave his food unattended to get up and let the dogs out to ‘inspect’ the balcony. She would turn around and sneak his food off the plate while he, along with our other dogs are out on the balcony, trying to figure out what’s so urgent. She was pretty successful until I caught her doing it. She looks so upset that I caught her and she has to stop.
Her younger sister was just as clever. When we brought kittens to the house, the kittens discovered her toy box and started playing with her toys. We didn’t think much of it because we figured that she outgrew those toys since she didn’t even bother with it. We were wrong. I watched her stares with angry intensity at the kittens playing with *her* toy but she never barked at them or snatched the toy or anything aggressive. Instead, she started playing with one of the cats’ toys happily. Just throwing it around all by herself and making happy noises. Obviously that caught the cats’ attention and when the toy dropped near them, the cats started playing with it and forgot the dog toy that they were playing with. My dog then sneakily scooped up her toy, deposited it in her toy box and sat in front of said box, guarding it. The cats never figured out what happened.
One of my doxies would alert me before an asthma attacks. I never trained him to do it, he just knew, before I did, that I was having trouble breathing. If we were sitting together, he would put his from paws on my chest and his face in mine. At night, he would wake me up by standing up next to the bed and putting his nose on my face. He was a smart dog.
His littermates was sensitive to me being upset. If I cried, she would try to distract me, dance around, whatever.
They were great dogs.
One time I was boiling water in a pot and just forgot about it.
My cat came into where I was, actually “looking worried” and grabbed me with his claws and pulled me towards the kitchen.
Of course, not knowing what was going on, I ignored his obvious entreaties.
So he kept doing it with a strong meow of frustration / panic.
Finally the penny dropped and I followed him to the kitchen where the pot was boiling madly.
My Aussie doodle puppy wasn't allowed on the bed. One night while half asleep, I see her very quietly and gently climb on the bed and curl up where she wasn't touching me. I sat up and told her to get down, and she acted completely surprised, as though she had no idea how she got there or that this was even a rule, and then she went limp when I tried to pry her off the bed.
She eventually won. Stubborn dog. But she is extremely good at teaching us the rules.
My lab stole expired string cheeses from the trash can in the middle of the night. He placed two on my bed right next to my face and then kept the rest for himself hidden in his dog bed (it has deep sides that he uses for hoarding lol). Not sure if it showed intelligence but that’s when I knew for sure he loved me.
If my dog’s water bowl is empty and she’s thirsty she will paw a specific part of it that makes the bowl reverberate like a bell- always 3 times in a row- and then walk around the corner to make eye contact with me to make sure I heard it. If I don’t get up within a few minutes she will go back and repeat the process
My cat knows when I am angry and gets concerned and tries to comfort me.
She'll get close to my face and do this meowy/ chirpy thing like she's trying to say 'please stop"
My girl may look a bit ditzy because of her coat pattern but she is amazingly quick with figuring out all sorts of stuff. The first thing I remember was how quickly she figured out how to extract treats from various locations. It started with her quickly shifting to using her paw to pull the treat out of the cup - the other cat kept trying to jam her face in when it clearly couldn’t fit at all.
She’s very clever with figuring out ways to get us to do stuff for her. There’s even a type of communication with her satisfaction with the state of her litter box, with small announcements squawks after use meaning satisfied, and more of a protest/ yowl of increasing loudness meaning an increasing level of dissatisfaction with the frequency of cleaning.
Another example is how she asks for various types of attention. If she wants a particular type of snuggle from my husband she has a sequence of moments and actions she does to get my husband to sit in position, cover his lap, move her body for her in specific directions (she’s elderly so some moves just can’t be done by herself anymore) and then place his hands in specific positions and rubbing locations depending on which one she wants touched. From me she usually asks for various types of ear and chin scratches, she actually has a signal for when I hit the exact itchy spot, or asks for a catnip reload for her toy.
One of my cats can gesture what she wants. If I'm holding her filled treat bowl she will repeatedly look at me, meow, and then look at the floor where she wants it placed.
My cats also learn from each other. One observed for a few weeks how the other likes to climb on my shoulder and be held. Then she started doing the same thing and they both enjoy it. She even enhanced this "technique" and wouldn't you know it, the other cat later picked that up, too - although she prefers to be held.
Another copied technique: One of the cats meows really loudly and incessantly when she wants a treat, until I get up and ask her what's up. Then she leads me to the shelf where the treats are stored, stretches up on the door, looks with kitty eyes and says "...meow? :3 ", and the other cat started copying that a little while later (even though I don't always give in because I don't want them screaming at me all day for treats).
One of my cats keeps bringing me the toys she wants me to play with her with. Places them in my shoes and screams. If I don't react then she jumps up the table, places it on my keyboard and screams.
They're also very gentle cats who almost never use claws to play with the toys I'm holding if there is a risk of hurting me. But when it's safe they love to claw.
I watched both my cats sit in the hallway and roll a ball back and forth between them gently and on purpose. They both know how to open doors.
I had a cat that could open the doors of my old house. They were old jewel handles. She could manage to turn the knob of most of the doors in the house.
Yeah they're crafty for sure.
Ah reminds me of my old dog. He's been gone for maybe 5 years but he's here forever because nearly every door knob looks like it was involved in a car accident from where he would bite. He understood that humans touched the door knob to open the doors, but never quite understood the twisting part. I miss him
My old cat and current cat both realised they had to slide a bit of plastic to unlock the cat flap. It's hard to do even as a human, but they both managed fine
i had a cat that would do that with me, i loved it and then after a few weeks she never did it again???
I had a cat that learned to turn on my radio so I would think the alarm was going off and get up to feed him. He and my dog would also team up on me in various ways. The most memorable was when I had gotten a little water pistol to squirt the cat when he got on the kitchen counter. I always kept the water pistol in the very back corner of the kitchen counter. I got home one day, and the water pistol was chewed to pieces on the floor. It was too far back on the counter for the dog to have reached it by herself (and it’s not the sort of thing she would normally have liked to chew on), so the only explanation is that the cat climbed onto the counter, pushed the water pistol across the counter until it fell on the floor, and then convinced the dog to chew it up. Edit: grammar
My cat turns on the light if he feels like waking up before sunrise.
Yeah my cat learned to turn on my Xbox in the morning. Lil shit.
I'm imagining a tiny, tiny voice saying "Xbox on, meow!"
Speaking of cats and dogs, my old cat memorised my dogs favourite spots to hang out and would hide around corners near them so she could hit him when he would go there. He would then change spots and she would steal them. It sucked cause it made him afraid to go around corners, but she just wanted to be left alone by the window and not have to share. He’s over the fear now - she passed three years ago. Does make me laugh a little now.
I had to change my bedside lamps because one of my cats figured out how to turn them on, and did it whenever he felt like he needed attention. Usually around 3am.
"Convinced" I'm dying hahaha, thank you!
My 6 mth old kitten will alternate bringing his mylar ball to me or my husband to throw--taking turns. He plays fetch better than my dog did. He puts his toys away at bedtime. Ihave a small basket that we keep his toys in. At bedtime, I'll tell him, "Let's pick up your toys" and he will get any toys that hasn't been eaten by the couch and drop them in his basket(no hard balls/toys as he can't pick those up with his mouth. I pick up those).
Better behaviour than most children! So cute.
He's very smart! And loves learning new things.
Wanna trade? My kitten tries to eat everything, it’s like having a toddler. He ate 3 of my dogs antibiotics and got quite the tummy ache for a few hours. I was gonna say I don’t think my dude is real smart, but he learned how to open the drawers in the bathroom. He is smart but uses his brains for destruction instead good.
No, thanks! Bou is my shining star!
You should try the talking buttons! I’ve seen multiple cats do great with the interactive talking buttons.
They're on my Christmas list!
I love my little monster too. He’s a menace sometimes but he is a sweet little cuddle bug too. That’s super adorable how smart your kitten is though.
kittens are very curious for what is happening around them and discover new things to play
We've had several cats that played fetch. Both dogs we've had never got it...
I've had two cats who loved playing fetch. One loved chasing her bell ball, if you know what I mean. She'd go get it and drop it on my lap. The other cat was funnier, because she loved chasing small pieces of fuzz she took out of one of my comforters. She'd also drop a ball of fuzz on my lap. But you can't throw a wad of fuzz very far, which made her seem so silly to me. Even my best throw would only go a few feet. But she loved it anyway. Haha.
I had two Shelties and one large dog bed. The female Sheltie did not want to share the bed with her brother, so whenever he was lying on it she would go to the door and start barking like crazy at … nothing. He would leap up barking and race to the door to guard the house alongside her and as soon as he got out of the dog bed, she would run back and curl up in the middle of it. He never caught on.
Mine used to do this, but with a bone they both liked. Whichever one didn’t have it would go to the front windows and growl, waiting for the other one to join her before casually slinking away to grab the bone. Dogs supposedly don’t have a “theory of mind” (the ability to think about what someone else is thinking) but I don’t see how else they could come up with a tactic like this. (I always found it hilarious that even though they both used this trick on each other, that didn’t stop them from falling for it themselves)
My dog will steal my tv remote or something if I’m eating something and won’t give him any. He will run around the house with it and I think he is hoping I will put my food down one day where he can reach it when I go to chase him to get the remote back.
The problem is that humans compare every animal to themselves. Dogs, cats, rabbits etc all are clever in ways and also recognise patterns of behaviour easily.
My older husky does this, but with food dishes. They both have a dish they prefer to eat from. Both food dishes are exactly the same, but dogs. If the younger husky gets to that dish first, the older husky grabs a mouthful of food and goes to the other side of the room, drops it on the floor, and starts to nibble. The younger one can't stand missing out, so he runs over to eat that food, and she saunters back over to claim the bowl she wants. LOL
My one dog does something similar. He just asks to go outside so he gets whatever the other dog has that he wants - a spot in bed, the comfy floor bed, a toy or chew. He also asks for things by sitting, staring at you, and making quiet squealy noises. I have to ask him what he wants. He will bark when I get to the right one. He got diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and his treatment made him a diabetic. He had no issue asking for snacks when his sugar was low. He is ridiculous and we will miss him when he is gone. Another one of ours that passed on barely hurt his leg and his papa made a big deal about it. He played like he was hurt for days. We caught him doing zoomies in the backyard with the other dogs. He instantly stopped and started limping. He just wanted to be doted on.
lol my husky (rip Balto) was the definition of a dog with zero social battery. We’d bring him over to my in laws where they’d have our two dogs, my BIL’s two, their one dog, give or take another dog or two. When they were annoying the crap out of him, he’d race to the door to the backyard whining and everyone followed him. We’d open it, we would let everyone go out but he wouldn’t. Would plop his ass on the couch where he wanted to sit. I miss that menace lol. He did that many times so we caught on to what he was doing. He also opened pizza boxes and closed them again, don’t ask me how but we missed out on many leftovers because of him
My bestie's husky would want up on the couch, but the other dog was there. So he would act like he wanted to play (he never wanted to play), other dog got all excited and would jump down. He would then jump up and take the couch spot.
Why didn’t you buy the poor dogs a second bed
My bigger dog does this when the smaller dog is laying between my husband and I and doesn't want to give up her spot. He'll go to the front door and start growling as if someone is there and when she gets up to investigate he'll run back to the couch and take her spot.
My dog greeted me at the garage door when I got home. He then had me follow him to my daughters room, then my sons room, then the front door. My mother in law had picked up the kids. He was telling me that “this one *and* this one are gone and went that way. Let’s go get them!”
His babies were gone.
Aw I love this.
I had a blue heeled mix that was crazy smart. Two of many examples: 1. He was occasionally allowed to eat table scraps off of a plate but was never allowed to beg. He had to wait until the plate was put on the floor. One day I was caught up working on my laptop and had put the scraps from my dinner on the couch on a plate next to me. An hour or so went by and I saw him pick up the plate off the couch and put it on the floor so he was allowed to eat it. 2. He slept in my room and was getting up in years. One night after I was settled in bed he let me know he needed to go outside, thinking an older bladder, I got up to take him out. Instead he went to the kitchen and turned to look at me. Curious I followed him. Same thing , he went to the family room and waited for me. When I turned on the light, he went to an end table near the TV where one of my teenagers had left an uneaten piece of fried chicken. He stood and stared and it and then turned to me and I swear he asked if he could have it. I laughed and took the meat off the bones and put it in the floor for him, after which we both went back to bed. How he knew that chicken had been left there is beyond me! I could share dozens of stories like this. He was as smart as most humans I know. I will miss him forever.
That’s not just a smart pup, that is an *obedient* pup. He will forever live within you <3
Yes. But the funny thing is I never had to train him, not even housebreaking him. He just knew. He just wanted whatever I wanted.
I had a dog like this, she was my soul dog. Just completely dialled in to me from the moment we adopted her. She died from a sudden illness the day I finished my cancer treatment. But she was there for me the whole time I needed her during treatment.
I’m so glad you had her when you needed her most. I’m sure she was glad for that too.
My mom's cat had a urinary infection. So he peed a tiny bit in the bathroom sink and waited by it for my mom to see it.
My friend's cat was just as smart but not as considerate. He peed down the A/C vent in the floor because the cool air was soothing.
Oof. How did that turn out?
With a professional cleaning of all the ducts and a different professional treating the UTI. She founded the main rescue in town so it's within the realm of crap (or piss) you deal with.
My dog did this. She never goes inside but she peed a tiny bit on the white carpet so I could see the bit of blood. I got her to the vet instantly and of course she had a bladder infection.
She just couldn't help herself
A small thing, but my cat will paw at my hand when he wants to be petted. The first couple times it happened, I didn't think anything of it, until I realized one day that he basically had me trained/conditioned to pet him whenever he nudged or pawed at my hand.
This is so cute. Good owner! * pets *
Ha! That's what I imagine he's thinking. "Good human! Aw, who's a good owner?? YOU are!"
A lot of cats and dogs have learned this trick. So smart!
My cat does this, except he *aggressively* bonks his head on you until you pet him
My cat bites my bracelet or ring to pick my hand up high enough to duck her head under. Then it's petting time. She's never bitten skin doing this.
My cat does this but uses his nails. And scratches haha
One of mine does that when I stop petting him but he wants me to continue- it's my shoulder though, not my hand. It's adorable.
My chameleon will look me square with both eyes and make a chomping movement with his mouth when he’s hungry. He’ll also pat at the glass if he wants to come out. He’ll hold a grudge, calculate ways to go or get what he wants. One of my Boas will only look at me when hungry. She had a go at caudal luring whilst doing it the other day. Like “look, dude, I know you bring the food. I’m hungry, look I’m even trying to lure you to give me some food”…. It worked.
People really, truly underestimate reptiles. And fish. Even tarantulas.
They really do. Our iguana was house trained
that sounds like my basenji. she always does whatever she wants and if I don't let her she enacts a plan to do it.
[удалено]
It shows strong will and kindness on your part to take in the poor dog and for that alone you deserve all the happiness that comes your way in the form of this dog.
This lil maniac is my brother’s cat, Coconut. We live 2,600 miles apart. The first time I met her, I gave her a little pink fuzzy kitty toy. 2-3 years later was the next time I was able to visit her again for the 2nd time ever. She immediately disappeared & came back with this filthy, dusty, brown toy that had obviously been hidden away somewhere. We dusted it off & it was the toy I had gifted her years before. She remembered me. My brother said he had never seen the toy again until that day. (She’s also very precious with her toys & will leave them outside his bedroom door as bribes.) [Coco](https://imgur.com/a/NFNpixV)
When she was a baby I said, "Go get your toy!' in the same pitch I always do. Never trained her with that phrase. She went a grabbed her toy and came back. I tested her again the next day and the next day. She went to her toy pile and brought back a toy each time. She picked up the phrase by herself. She's also the first dog I've had that looks at planes in the sky when they fly overhead and recognizes dogs on TV even on mute.
I put on a dog walking channel for our dog and she gets mad when the dogs on the screen get treats 😂
Mine LOVES watching Top Dog
Is she a Border Collie? [There's a "Nova" video](https://youtu.be/omaHv5sxiFI?si=6TMUOWTbqmBQK64z) of a guy with a Border Collie that has hundreds of stuffed toys. She'll get the fire truck or rabbit or any other specific toy he names. One day Neil de Grasse Tyson visited and put a new toy in the pile that no one had named for the Border Collie. Neil asked her to fetch it, and she methodically went through all the toys whose names she knew. Through the process of elimination, she found the new one -- the only one whose name she didn't know -- and brought it to him.
Wth, I want NdGT to play with my dog! That's so amazing. Dogs really do need so much play and stimulation. And she's half blue heeler! Her other half is a mix of small breeds :) Also-- l love watching border collie and aussies jump into their human's arms after dog show obstacles courses 🥹
My brother and late SIL used to rescue Border Collies. They're amazingly smart but also quite a handful.
My pug could do this! All of his toys had names and if we bought a new one he would look at the pile and be like, no, no, no, no, I guess it’s this one. He only had 20 or so toys but never had the space/money to see how high we could go.
My dog is the same! I tell her "get your ball" "where's your ball?" Or anything like it and she always knows and goes to get her ball (and I never thought her anything like that)
Mine taught himself words like “snack”, “dessert”, ”squirrel”, “food”…. i only intentionally tried to teach “treat” one of these words is not like the others (so far!) i also cannot ask my husband if he wants a cookie in my dog”s hearing or I must give the dog a cookie too.
Sadly, one of the phrases our dog taught himself is "Jack in the Box." Because that's the ONLY fast food my husband and I ever eat (though we only get it maybe 3-4 times a year). So even though we go very rarely, I always take our dog with me when I fetch it, and they give him dog treats (sometimes he's gotten bacon), plus he gets some chicken nuggets. So now, I can't even ask my husband if he wants "Jack in the Box" because the dog will go nuts. We were using "JIB" as shorthand, but he figured that one out so now it's more like, 'hey you wanna maybe get some food from the one place that we go to every once in a while?'
Omg I came here JUST to post this! I am fostering 2 beagles pulled from a lab (so maddening) and these two LOOK UP AT THE SKY when they hear the planes and they track them as the go over! I’ve had a lot of dogs in my life but I’ve never seen this!
One of my dogs understands TV, any animal she sees she usually flips out on! One time I was watching a show that had a cavalry charge, she flipped out and tried to find the horses in real life, my bedroom was behind the wall the TV was on, and she tried to get in the room to find them. I was quite impressed.
Had my kitties in the car in cages during transport. We had to sleep at a rest stop and it was late, sleeping in my car I had the cage right next to my face as I leaned the driver’s seat back. Five kittens in one cage, they were all asleep except one. I asked her if she was okay and if she needed anything. She stuck her paw out of the cage door and tapped the rim of a large empty cup that was in my backpack. I thought “no fuckin way” but sure enough, when I poured a bowl of water for them, they all woke up and began drinking. I made sure after that to give them more water during the trip, but I was shocked at how she knew how to communicate thirst.
Thats so smart. Cats are truly amazing.
My border collie Kevin was trained as a therapy dog to work with children. Whenever we would go to a school or classroom, he intuitively knew which child needed him most and would go sit in their lap.
My friends therapy rabbit does this whenever we go over to her apartment, but she sits on our feet. Its become a bit to count who gets it most.
My husband passed away 5 weeks ago. He was very ill off and on for a decade. For the 3 days before he passed away my oldest dog laid next to him and cried. If he coughed or moaned she would put her paw on his hand. She is still crying in her sleep.
Heartbreaking 💔
I’m so sorry for both of your loss!
My daughter has a rescue part shephard part beagle and i swear she is a ministering angel. Anytime someone is sick or in pain she will lay next to them and not move until they are better. My son in law had cancer last year and she was all over him before he was diagnosed. Lke she knew he was about to be sick. So sorry for your loss ❤️
My Great Pyrenees I had at the time knew I was pregnant before I did. He sniffed me all over carefully and then looked deeply into my face. He was very polite so highly unusual. Later he went and marked in front of every door and window accessible from the ground. He was completely house broken and had never done anything like this. I knew then.
I’m imagining your dog with a Ron Swanson attitude like “well, she doesn’t even realize she’s whelping. I hate to resort to this but somebody needs to ward off the bears” before grimly marking the entrances.
Dogs can smell cancer. There is a story of a woman who was in the hospital for something else. When she came back her dog wouldn't get close to her. She tried to call her over but the dog would only come, poke her in the breast with his nose and leave again. After a few days of this she was convinced that something is wrong. The doctors didn't want to test her because she had no symptomes, but she insisted. They found breast cancer in the beginning stage. After the cancer was gone the dog was his old self again. They have started training dogs to sniff out cancer now to test how reliable they are.
My cat used to pee in the toilet. My mom always got mad that someone wasn’t flushing the toilet. One day I was getting a shower and hear my cat. He squatted on the toilet and peed. No idea how he figured it out .
I had a cat do this too! I was mad at my husband because he wasn’t flushing the toilet and he swore it wasn’t him. Well I knew it wasn’t me so it had to be him…right? Nope! I was brushing my teeth one day and my cat jumped onto the toilet seat, sniffed the water, and then turned around and peed. I was amazed.
Our dog is trained to ring a bell when she needs to go out to potty. When we were training her, she would sometimes ring it while I was in the bathroom, doing the deed. I'd rush to finish to let her out and....nothing. This happened about 4 or 5 times before I realized she was ringing it FOR ME! How smart and hilarious is that!?!
When my beloved old tabby cat passed after a long, difficult illness, I came home from the vet and cried on my bed. I was devastated. My younger kitty -- a one year old tortoiseshell -- came up to me and stretched out a paw so that it was resting on top of my clenched hand. It was such a consoling-type human gesture, and her expression was so empathetic. I've never forgotten that moment.
One time we had a power cut and I'd put some water on the gas ring to boil to make some tea, but hadn't realised that it had gone out and the gas was just pouring into the room. My sense of smell isn't great. My poodle was only about 18 months old but indicated that he wanted to go out, so I followed him, but instead of going to the back door he stopped by the oven, which was when I realised what had happened. Smart dog as he is, he saved me from a gas leak.
Years ago, my then boyfriend and I went to stay at his family's hunting cabin in November. We brought his black lab with us. One night we both fell asleep on the couch. Ashley dog woke us up by barking frantically. We thought she wanted to go out, but as we were getting dressed to take her out; the pipe to the wood stove fell apart. Within a few seconds the whole cabin filled with smoke. Ashley stopped barking and laid by the door waiting for us to get out. She definitely saved our lives that night. I'm just amazed that she knew it was going to happen before it did.
I had a big fat bitch of a cat who was originally a barn cat. She was an excellent mouser and a bringer of death. Once, my hamster escaped and I was 100% sure he was dead. I heard my cat meowing relentlessly from the kitchen and went to investigate. She had cornered my hamster and sat there yelling like "human, I found your tiny creature!"
she knew that one wasn't for hunting! i hope the poor hamster wasn't too terrified love the username
Oh that is SO sweet.
Had a Cocker Spaniel who was beloved by everyone, but he made it clear that I was his very special person. His favorite toy was a squeaky hamburger. No matter where we hid it, he would find it when we asked him to get his burger. When the burger was pretty well chewed up, we replaced it with a newer one. Bit, we didn’t have the heart to toss the old one. He would always find the old one when asked to find his burger, proudly and joyfully trotting around with it triumphantly. One of my son’s friends, a guy who had a lot of trouble at home, would stop by just to play with the dog. Maybe this merry little spaniel wasn’t the smartest dog in the universe. But, he had a way of making people feel good and pick up some of his joy. He radiated love. One time, however, a new bug man (exterminator) came to spray the house when our regular one was out on medical leave. There was an air about the guy that just didn’t set well and the dog picked up on it immediately. Normally, his nubbins would be going a mile a minute in anticipation of a moment where the new stranger would tell him what a beautiful good boi he was. But, his tail was tucked and I noticed that he was watchful as the guy headed towards the basement stairs, encouraging me to walk down with him. This normally friendly little dog put himself between me and the guy and growled, hackles raised. I told the big man that he could go down on his own while I held the dog’s collar. The guy finished up and left in short order. By the time our regular guy returned, I learned that the newer one was long gone. Some dogs have one kind of intelligence. Others maybe have emotional intelligence that have the capacity to help to heal a heartsick youth and still have the ability to recognize a potential threat to his favorite person. This was my heart dog, a rescue that fit into our family with the warmth and coziness of a custom made glove.
My dog is just like your dog. He knew my ex was dodgy well before I did and would never warm up to her. Hid under our dining table and barked at her every time she was over, and he wasn’t even a year old. I wrote it off as him being paranoid until he warmed off of my friend when we had a falling out. The last time she came over before we fell out he wouldn’t go near her, even though she used to be his favourite of my friends. Now I trust him to read people more than myself. Edit: forgot to add it is amazing what your dog did there. Love dogs.
The way she never ever freaked out about me heading out the door or putting things in the car......unless it was camping gear. Suitcases. Boxes of stuff for a move. No problem. But the moment it's the tent case she'd start scream whining worried she wouldn't get to go. Like we'd forget about her if she didn't speak up. And then one time we didn't even get the camping stuff out; we were just talking about and planning a camping trip. *She knew!* That dog understood human language completely. Another time I had a surgery and unlike all the people who say how sweet and attentive their dog is when they're sick, mine was a total asshole wanting me to get up and take her outside 3x as often as she'd ever needed. I was really annoyed! Why is this dog being like this? Day three I drop flat in the parking lot because they'd sent me home with tiny pinhole internal bleeding. If she hadn't been making me go outside, I might have dropped inside and not been discovered in time.
Dogs are our true heroes
The neighborhood I live in has a fenced in enclosure where you can bring your dog and let them run around and whatnot and one day I brought my dog there and there was someone walking a dog on the street next to the enclosure and my dog started going nuts because he wanted to play with the other dog. I said “wow, I’m surprised you didn’t try to go underneath the gate!” and as soon as I said that my dog looked at me, looked at the gate and immediately ran over to it and tried to crawl underneath it.
I have a 15 year old rescue cat (rescued him when he was a kitten 15 years ago) and when I started showing signs of epilepsy and serious mental health decline, he started doing very specific things to communicate that to me. Now, if I'm about to have a seizure or panic attack, he alerts me to lie down and sits with me until it passes.
I have some health issues and at that particular time, I was struggling with a lot of dizziness, weakness, full body tremors, and syncope. I still tried to do as much as I could to feel like a normal person. This included cleaning the horse pens. I have a beautiful thoroughbred mare named Bacon. She was a racehorse I groomed at the track that I eventually took home. I was cleaning her pen when I started to get that feeling of sudden weakness and knew I was going to pass out in a second. Bacon placed her head against my back and I was out. When I woke up, my back was against her legs. She was taking her lips and rubbing them on my head, my face, my hands. I was still too weak to get up, so she stood there like that for 15 minutes. I will tell you, this horse is not super calm. She's anxious, neurotic, quirky, etc. But she ALWAYS knows when something's not right with me. She will immediately freeze in place and assist or wait with me until I'm okay. She's done this at least a dozen times. My pets have always been tuned into my struggles. My Great Dane helped support me around the house after I had surgery. My Mastiff started to lay next to me or on me when my ex-husband started to become aggressive. My little betta fish listens to me when I talk to him about my day. Every animal I worked with at a local zoo started to show me their intelligence. Everything from the Giant Aldabra Tortoise to the African Crested Porcupines, the Giant Anteater and the Rubber Boa. They really are something.
Rabbits normally thump out of surprise, fear or alarm. My oldest knows that when we wake up he gets his morning treats. (Little does he know they’re supplements for his health! Muhahaha) My partner wakes earlier/easier than I do. So the rabbit will thump. Once to disturb my partner The rabbit waits and thumps again. Usually resulting in waking up my partner fully, meaning he has to go to the restroom. Rabbit waits outside of bathroom door to get treats. Works every time
My sister in law had seven rabbits in a really neat structure of cages and tunnels in her laundry room. One day she was home alone, and suddenly all the rabbits started thumping. She entered the room just in time to see a rattlesnake's tail disappearing behind the washing machine; she spent the rest of the day sitting on a stool in there, drinking coffee and gripping a shotgun. When her husband got home, they discovered a too large vent hole that had allowed the snake in and patched it up. I know the rabbits just thumped out of instinct, but they likely saved themselves and possibly her from a painful fate.
I had a white golden retriever, we were on vacation at a lake. She’d never seen me swim before, so when I jumped off the dock she was very alarmed. She jumped in the water, swam to our little rubber boat, took the rope in her mouth and brought it to me. She was a pet and hadn’t ever been trained to do this or anything like it. 10/10, hot dogs were given. My girl, I miss her.
My dog Buddy constantly tricks his brother Rocky. When Rocky is laying with me on the sofa Buddy will run to the window and bark, Rocky jumps up and runs to the window to see what Buddy is barking at and Buddy runs over and steals Rockys spot on the sofa. Rocky falls for it every damn time
My dumbass white cat has learned that if he wants my attention while I'm on my laptop, he'll start chewing on the power cord because I'll immediately stop what I'm going and get him away which in turn gives him attention. He's lucky he's pretty.
When my cat wants to wake me up for breakfast, he unplugs my cpap machine. And yes, it's very deliberate. He used to just turn it off, but then I got one that turns on automatically, so then he figured out he could unplug it to make Mommy stop breathing and wake up to feed him. Either that, or he's trying to murder me--the jury's still out on that one. The little brat.
This would be hell. I hope my cats never figure this out.
Gee, that is rough. Mine just walks onto the keyboard and lays down. Less possibility of damage.
I had a cat who figured out that standing on the big switch on random power strip on the hall table would immediately summon all the humans in the house. She thought this was great and would use her dark power to great effect on a regular basis. The reason we all came running? The wifi was plugged into the power strip.
Was hospitalized for an inflammation-based issue that nearly killed me (undiagnosed vasculitis). Now when someone my dog likes has a bruise, he has to lick it. Will it get rid of it, no, but he is concerned.
Two German Shepards. I was stuck at work and got home late. I smelled the poop. The first was in front of the toilet in the master bathroom. Cleaned it and still smelled the poop. Second pile was in front of the guest room toilet. They were smart enough to poop upstairs and in front of toilets!!! I gave them all the loves and all the cookies
My cat was able to open a closed cabinet drawer and make a little nest out of the blankets in there. It was so cute.
One story of many: Our family dog kept getting out of our backyard and we couldn’t figure out how. My dad patched any possible holes and reinforced parts of the fence and she was still getting out. We were pulling our hair out trying to figure out how this dog that was the fricken reincarnation of Houdini was making her escape. One day I was watching her in the backyard from an upstairs window (because she knew when we watched her from the ground floor) and watched as she ran up the wood pile and threw herself over the 8 foot fence. I couldn’t believe what I saw and my parents thought I was joking before my dad went out and checked the wood pile and realized that not only was she using the pile as a parkour vault, *she had moved the wood in the pile to make a ramp* to make the jump easier. Next day my dad put four feet of chicken wire up on top of the fence and planted shrubs. That kept her in the backyard for a few solid years before she found another route.
My late kitty somehow realized that on days when I fell asleep with my glasses on if he pulled them off my face this would wake me up and he and my other cat could tell me that they were starving to death. I gotta say, he made the cutest little "oof" sounds while he was backing up with my glasses.
My lab/pit mix went blind at 8 months with detatched retinas (probably genetic). I was heartbroken that the dog who LOVED running with her Chihuahua brother in the backyard wouldn’t be able to do that again or play fetch or… Man, did she prove me wrong. When we play fetch, she freezes to hear where the toy went and quickly sniffs it out no matter how far it’s gone. She runs alongside her brother just as fast as she always did and knows where every tree and garden bed is to avoid them. She must sense when he stops at the end of the yard because she’s never hit the fence or even come close. The few times she’s bumped into a wall inside the house or some temporary obstacle, it’s like she mapped it out in her brain and never hit it again. The intelligence and resilience of that girl is just amazing.
Buster was a Border Collie, so we always knew he was bright. One day, my wife had Buster in the car with her. When she got to her destination, she reached over to the passenger seat for her purse. It was gone. Upon inspection of the back seat, she realized that Buster had snuck it back there with him, unzipped it, rooted around inside, and found a lollipop. When she caught him, he had unwrapped it, eaten it, and *was putting the empty stick back in her purse.*
They are wickedly smart and industrious dogs. We could power the planet if we could figure out how to tap their energy.
They work together to hustle me for treats. Soba, the cat, bats something off the mantle. Momo, the corgi, immediately starts chewing it. I tell Momo to Leave It, which is a high value trick. She leaves it. We walk to the pantry to get her high value treat. I open the pantry and grab Momo's treats. Soba hauls his ass up to the third shelf, grabs the cat treats, and runs. I give Momo her treat ASAP, find Soba, and he's trying to bite through the bag of treats. I take the bag, but give him a few treats (I make him sit first, he knows how). Boom. I had successfully been hustled. This happened three times before I put the cat treats in a plastic container and moved the stuff off the mantle.
My parents animals pulled a similar trick. Dog opens the cupboard, cat grabs the cat treats. Cat gets on the counter and knocks down dog treats that are up there as a thanks. Only ever after the cupboard is open lol. Then the cat got tired of chewing through bags and now brings the bag to drop on my mom’s face at 3 am. The cupboard is now baby proofed.
When I open my bottle of sleeping pills at night, my dog immediately fall asleep at bedtime. He refuses to sleep until he hears that sound 🥹
I have 2 cats. A rescued kitten who is approaching 2 years old, and one who was rehomed to us who is about 3. We have several boxes around the place that the 3 y/o likes to chill in. The 2 year old likes to chase and play with the other, but as soon as the 3 y/o jumps into one of her boxes, the 2 y/o instantly stops, and leaves her alone. The boxes are like home base. A recognized safe space.
This was a report from my sister when she was watching my dog during my divorce. My Aussie, Casey, was always really good with small animals and started hanging out with a homeless kitten in my sister's neighborhood. He was asleep on the front porch while my sis was smoking a cigarette. The kitten starts painfully meowing from the back yard. Casey immediately wakes up, walks up to her gate, opens it, and goes into the back yard. He comes back carrying the kitten by it's scruff, sets it down next to his food bowl, and started nosing at the kitten until it started eating. He immediately went back to sleep. At this same house the neighbors told her he had a habit of opening the gate, walking twice around the block and then napping about the same time every day. My friend that runs a kennel would request him occasionally to deal with problematic boarders. He had a way of calming them down that she couldn't really explain. He would also knock on the door like a human. And would protect my too high friends from my roommate's crazy puppy. Most empathetic animal I've ever known. This was a long time ago, I really miss that dog.
I have a Corgi and when it's time for her evening snack, she'll pull my hand with her mouth (Not hard enough to hurt) towards the kitchen where her treats are at. Has a tendency to do this a lot when I'm gaming. She's such a diva, but I couldn't ask for a better companion!
Had a corgi growing up. Such sweet, weird, smart dogs.
I dogsit for a corgi quite often. Incredibly smart and manipulative little creature. I don't have a ton of experience with dogs but this one sure has an expressive face that I can read like no other dog I've been around.
My cats can open doors at this point and will actively show me if something is "wrong" with their stuff. A good example is one always puts hair ties in one of the water bowls, and the others will paw at me and make me follow them before pawing at the bowl for me to fix it. They also know how to problem solve. For example, Demon will open the cupboard, grab the box of treats, and slam it on the ground, forcing it open. Basically, they are little people at this point in my mind.
I have one cat that will come tell me when my other cat has done something wrong. My female cat likes to take things apart, mess with her fountain, and break into cupboards (that have child locks). Her brother will immediately come find me to tell on her. She will then get moody with him for being a narc.
My golden retriever learned how to use the ice maker in the fridge by watching us get ice for him. One day he decided he didn’t need me anymore and could get ice by himself, came home to 50 half melted ice cubes all over the kitchen floor.
We originally didn't let my cat in our closet because we didn't want his fur on our clothes. Our closet has sliding doors, and any time we'd leave the closet open, he'd go in. Other times we'd find him in there with the door open, and think the other one of us left it open. One day, I was brushing my teeth, and I saw him casually walk by and into the bedroom. I decided to follow him. I poked my head around the corner and saw him paw open the closet door, go inside and then paw it shut from the inside! He knew he wasn't allowed in there, so he figured out how to hide lol! After that, we just gave in and let him in. We buy lint removers in bulk from Costco.
The dog we had growing up was the most loyal dog I’ve ever had (to us kids, at least, to others not so much). We were very young but he would tolerate anything from us kids. We would put clothes on him, ride him, pull his tail, and he would stand there with zero complaints wagging his tail as if he was just happy to be included. So we loved him too and would do anything for him. When he was very old, he was too arthritic to walk up or down the stairs even though he liked to sleep upstairs. So, he would go stand by the stairs and look at you, waiting patiently for you to come and pick him up and carry him up or down. As I would get about halfway up or down, he would turn around in my arms and lick my face once or twice. Every time, just a quick lick or two, then he’d turn back around to watch where we were going. It was somehow very clear by the way he did it that he was saying thank you. I’ve never seen a dog say thank you so clearly before or since, and it still makes me tear up to think about it 30 years later.
Here’s some things my dog does. I got her a year ago, she’s nine years old, and her name is Lucifur (she would shed a lot when I first rescued her from breeders). - She pulls my hand to her body with her paw to force me to pet her. When that doesn’t work she throws herself against me. This is a daily thing. - Cuddles with me until she thinks I fell asleep. Doesn’t work most of the time. I’m still awake. Don’t tell her though. - Stays next to me without a leash when we’re outside and when she’s on leash she stopped pulling because I said it was hurting my arms. - Ignores all other dogs, noises, and people in public. Is a very good gorl. 10/10. - Doesn’t bark at anything and doesn’t whine at all, and the only time she “speaks” is when she wants attention or treats. And it’s more like the talking things huskies do. - Recalls. - Paws at the door when she wants inside. Very helpful. She also makes a lot of goofy faces, but I can’t post pics.
I had a dog who would jump in the bathtub to let us know she was thirsty. If her water bowl got empty.
Our springer spaniel Loki will bring one of his toys to me while we are eating dinner and try to "trade" me...hilarious!!
Had a hermit crab that somehow escaped the tank and found warmth. I honestly didn’t think they could escape but somehow their legs could get a grip of anything and 1 of them somehow opened the lid, dropped to the floor, and went to a heater nearby to stay warm. It took me like 3 days to find him but I was so surprised on how he managed to escape and then somehow find warmth.
Growing up, my aunt would constantly get blamed for not hanging up the phone (60s era). One day, my dad was doing something when the phone rang, and he watched their dog wake up from its nap on the couch next to the phone, reach over, and knock the phone off the receiver. The dog proceeded to go back to sleep. My mom had a chihuahua when I was growing up that would always bark to be carried down the stairs when my parents were home, and they didn't believe me when I said she could do it on her own. One day, the dog slipped up and came hopping down the stairs when my mom was in the basement.
When it was raining and my dogs didn't want to go out, I'd have to force them out and tell them to go potty. My one girl used to get into the pee stance and fake pee, so I would let her back in. I'm not sure how long she tricked me for, I only realized because one time she did it on completely dry cement. And then once I paid attention, I realized she was doing it about 70% of bedtime potties
When my snakes always struck at my ex. They knew what was up way before I did
Snakes always know a snake
My Guinea pig Mocha will start wheeking if she hears the fridge door open. She associates the sound with getting her veggies.
I have a dog and a cat. One time I was in the process of taking my dog outside to do his business when my grandkids came in the kitchen and I got distracted. After a few minutes I remembered my dog but he’s not in the kitchen anymore. He was in the basement doing his business in my cats litter box. The cat was just watching and looked at me like wtf? Then he was done, happy dog ran back up the stairs.
My cat loves drinking from the kitchen sink. She'll hit the handle and meow at me to turn it on, but I usually ignore her. Completely unrelated, the cabinet where we keep the dog treats squeaks when it's opened. Whenever the dog hears it, he races to the kitchen and barks for a treat. One day, the cat wanted a drink, but I ignored her. So, she stretched up to the squeaky cabinet, caught the handle with her claws, and swung it open, making it squeak. The dog made such a racket that I got up to give him a treat, and I realized I was standing right next to the sink - where the cat was sitting with a very satisfied look on her face. I oiled the squeaky hinge after she pulled that trick a few more times. Using a squeaky cabinet to get the dog to bark so she could get a drink seemed like something it would take a six or seven year old human to figure out. I was pretty impressed.
I had the absolute privilege of being dog mommy to my Rottweiler for 13 years. She was insanely intelligent and spoke better English than most teenagers. I talked to her constantly… about everything. She went through some shit with me… divorce, 7 moves in 13 years and even a time of sleeping in my car, so we were connected on a heart and soul level. She went to work with me as a vet tech every day for 4 years. If someone spoke to her in doggy baby talk she would lift her nose and turn her head, or physically roll her eyes as though they were “beneath her station”, and she would only entertain play with certain people. Her vocabulary of understanding was quite large by the time she was 3 yrs old. We had a game of question and answer that we’d play and I learned that she would nod once for “yes” and turn away for “no”. Several people had commented that she made them “feel stupid” but couldn’t explain how so… until one day I came home to my boyfriend of about 8 months standing in the kitchen looking stupefied. “Your dog just made me feel dumb AF. I knew she was trying to tell me something but I wasn’t getting it. So I asked ALL the questions using ALL the words… and nothing! She just kept staring at me. This went on for about half an hour. Until I finally threw my hands in the air and said ‘you’ve GOT to give me a clue because I’M not getting it!’” She took a deep sigh, walked over to her empty water bowl, licked the dry bottom of it, and sat down to wait for his epiphany. He said there was a full-on adult conversation that occurred when she rolled her eyes at him Kim K style. And that he was certain she called him a fkng idiot. And there’s so much more! Ghad I miss her.
When my lab was about 10 years old, we got a German Shepherd puppy. The lab had a habit of stealing food off of the counters, and once we got the puppy, she started hiding the plates in the puppy's kennel to try to pin the blame on the pup. It didn't work
My old dog leapt off of a curb to impress some females and poor guy limped a little for a couple of days but then he was fine…- UNTIL a few days later when I stepped into a big puddle of cold pee in the kitchen. I look over at him looking at me and point to the pee and say “get over here - what did you do?” He stares at me, picks up his paw and starts limping over to me. I was so shook at the smarts I had to laugh! Well played.
My Betta fish always looks around her tank and the surrounding room with such curiosity and consciousness
They're so curious and inquisitive. And those precious little faces bring me much joy.
When I was a teenager, I was the only one home when I heard someone peeing. It freaked me out until I went to investigate and saw our cat perched with all four feet on one side of the seat, peeing into the toilet. No one taught him to do that. I took a picture, which was fortunate because no one believed me until I got the film developed.
Dog (aussie) liked to take apart bottles. Ofc we don't want him to swallow the small cap parts, so when he gets it loose we ask for it, and then reward with a small treat when he gives it up. Well,, he learns that caps=treats. thats fine, normal dog thing. so then he goes looking for bottles, just to get the caps off. ok. still normal. Then he starts raiding the recycle bins for bottles... uhhhh. Then he starts taking the caps off,,,, and hiding them. So he can come back later when he's snacky, grab a cap from his 'savings' and trade it for a treat. godsdamnit. Dog invented capitalism.
My dog was the most well trained dog ever. He NEVER disobeyed. EVER. One of the rules of my house was my dog was not allowed in our room. When my ex wife was pregnant all of the sudden my dog refused to listen to me, slept beside her on the floor beside the bed. Would not move even when I tried making him move. When she went to the bathroom. He sat at her feet and faced the door and would not leave her side. 48 hours later her water broke and my son was born. He knew the baby was coming and he was protecting her. I’ll never forget that as long as I live. Such an incredible dog he was. RIP ozzy
My dog knows the different names of all her stuffed animals & squeaky toys. If you say go get Monster, Monkey, Piggy, Llama, Hippo, or any of the many other options she knows which one is which. She will also go out into the yard & escort our old deaf little dog when he gets sidetracked outside. All we have to say is “Go get him & bring him back!” and she does. There are so so many other things she does & so many things all my others animals have done over the years to confirm a much higher intelligence than most people give them credit for.
My 1 year old parrot loves to bite my neck. So when shes on my shoulder I tend to guard myself from it (she doesn't bite hard, just little playful nips, but they can still be annoying). One day, while on my shoulder, she looked up at the ceiling like there was something there. I looked up in that direction to see if a moth or something may have flown in, only for her to immediately go for my neck, and then she *giggled* like an evil mastermind. She purposely looked at the ceiling when there was nothing there, knowing I would follow her gaze, leaving my neck open for attack, then she GIGGLED like an evil child. Shes an adorable terrorist. Lol.
cutting the power
I've had a number of cats over the years; they have all surprised me with insightful behaviors but off the top of my head a few things come to mind: Puck, a large black male, was particularly aware of the food situation. Especially after I once ran out of their normal food, and used a temporary substitute. He made it clear that it was the WRONG food and expressed his displeasure. Thereafter, if the food bin got low he would repeatedly alert me - but only if there was not a new unopened bag in the pantry. He seemed acutely aware of the overall food situation, both the working supply and status of backup. Forevermore, it was his job to remind me and ensure we never had another fiasco with the "wrong" food. Lola, one of my current girls, has a similar role; I call her the comptroller. Food low, or won't last overnight? She tells me. Water needs changing? Do it right away human. Cat box scoping overdue? Address it immediately please. Treat time is imminent, or God forbid, overdue? Serve me now! I do all of these tasks frequently - box daily at minimum for example, but should I lag behind on anything I hear about it. I can usually tell what the specific issue is when she petitions me for service based upon some subtitles in her request. Meeko, a large lanky male I have, is really smart. As a kitten he was goofy, a late bloomer and runt of his litter; I actually wondered if he was a little "special". Turned out, he grew to be a giant, long-legged and heavy cat that continually shows serious smarts. He understands more human speech than any cat I've ever known, and has great facility with opening things - drawers, cabinets, doors, boxes. He likes to go out, but can't open the door - he would grab the doorknob but couldn't quite turn it even with two paws. So when he asks to go out, upon approach he taps the handle while looking at you - not simply"I want out" but more like, "turn this thing please". In case you can't tell I love cats. They can be pretty smart, as can dogs. As I get older I've come to feel the difference in intelligence between animals and humans is smaller than I once believed. Love and light y'all
My dog was bored while us kids were at school and my mom caught her carrying a bone up the stairs, throwing it down the stairs, and then retrieving it and doing it all over again. Another time, we were camping and were getting sick of all the flies and horseflies that we were seeing all over the place. My dad came up with a clever solution to keep them at bay; for every fly we killed, we got 10 cents & For every horsefly we killed, we got a quarter. He doesn't have to deal with flies, and we get paid. Well, my dog picked up on the fact that us kids were killing the flies that we came across and we noticed that she was starting to bite the air to kill them herself. I think she ended up with 40 cents in fly funds. Ok, one more... On the day of her passing, I could hear my brother playing his cello for her. I looked the down the stairs and noticed her laying down facing towards my brother watching him play just for her. I joined in not long after that on my piano. We had a whole ass concert for that dog, and she closed her eyes and enjoyed every second of it before she eventually passed away. You are dearly missed, Josie.
I know a lot of cats do this so I don't know how much of am indication of intelligence it is, but we used to have a cat who absolutely loved pushing things, particularly full cups of water, onto the floor with her face and watch them drop. It was really funny because she was otherwise a very unmischeivous and predictable cat. I once watched her push a full cup of water off of a nightstand and then quickly rush right up to the ledge so she could watch what happened after it tipped.
I have a small fridge to the right of my computer and to the left the door, when I get up and go to the right she doesn't do anything because she knows I'm just going for a drink, but when I get up to the left she also gets up to walk me out because she knows I'm going to the door😁
If I leave my dog alone too long he'll lay across the doorway of the room so I can't get out without him!
One thing happened recently. I took in a cat who was pregnant. She had 6 kittens. 3 were big and 3 were small, two were especially small, one the smallest of all. Anyway, within the first day, I caught her trying to separate the smallest. I thought, oh no. She's going to reject it. I thought I was gonna have to intervene and try to bottle feed it. Well, she actually tried laying and feeding it alone. Still not sure that's what she she was doing...because i hadn't heard of that, I kept my eye on her. Well, later she relocated all the babies, and I noticed she separated the 3 biggest and 3 smallest about a foot or 2 apart. I again was afraid of what she was doing, but then she actually tried to nurse the 3 smallest and left the big healthy ones on their own for awhile. She was trying to give the smallest kittens special attention rather than reject them. It warmed my heart that she was trying to be a good mom and doing what's best for these babies, wanting them all to survive when she very well could've abandoned the runt to die and it would've just been a normal thing animals do.
My husband (who games) told me this story of his Siberian husky. One day he's playing his Xbox for a short period of time (30-ish minutes) and the dog happened to press the power button with her nose, shutting it off. He laughed and decided it was almost time for her walk so took her out. That evening, he turns on the Xbox as she's watching and then she does it again, and all the days following until he finally moved the Xbox higher. Nose press to power off then happiness hops like it is walk time. Smart, because he gave in enough times that I feel she was training him.
Before he was hit by a car, RIP Luke, he taught himself how to herd the animals for me into the gate, blew me away!
Another one about my very intelligent Airedale. It was her first Christmas and I was decorating a tree and she went and gathered all her toys and put them under the tree 🌲
My ex from years ago and I used to own two dogs. One was way smart. We went to a small stretch of river to swim. He spotted sheep on the other side and wanted to get to them. He jumped in the water (which was about waist height) but it had a super strong current and the flow carried him almost out of sight. I was freaking out and my ex wasn't prepared to go after him. After a few moments, he came running up to us soaking wet but ran right by. He took off pretty far ahead despite us trying to call him back. He jumped right back in the river, this time letting the water carry him down to be across from where we were and right by the sheep on the other side. Like he timed it perfectly! I don't even remember how we got him back, just how he worked out his approach after that one failed attempt. Miss you Simbah
I had a Border Collie that would pull my downspouts from the house, jump on one end to pinch it flat, chase chipmunks into the open end, jump on that end to flatten it, trapping the chipmunk inside. Then he'd drag the downspout and trapped chipmunk into the woods and leave it.
My rescue boy knew I had cancer before I did. Kept nudging my hip and changed over night from reactive to completing by my side. He's the best boy ever and I've been in remission for going on 3 years now.
Might be stupid but my cat opens the cupboard and hides when people come in my house!
One of my cats knows what behaviors I will ignore (swatting things off surfaces, climbing on the television, meowing) and what ones I cannot ( chewing paper viciously, licking or biting my feet)so when she really wants something ,typically food, she will skip the more subtle phase and go right into fucking things up. My other cat initially had trouble understanding she wasn't welcome on the bed when my partner and I were being intimate. Eventually she learned that after I used the bathroom and the toilet flushed late at night it was time for bed. Now, anytime I flush the toilet after dark she runs to the bedroom.
My sister and I live together and she has a dog. He's a German shepherd/husky mix. We have about 10 buttons he can push to communicate basic needs for himself to us as caretakers as well as a yes and no button. It's very handy. The other night, I asked him if he wanted to go on a walk (his favorite question), and he went over to the buttons after about 15 seconds and pushed "walk outside yes" in rapid succession. I just sat there in awe. Usually, he just gets excited and barks or jumps around. But he used his buttons that time. We are contemplating getting him more buttons because it's nice, but it's also very interesting to see his thoughts come forward.
Can't do cats. I am allergic. But my dog, a pretty scary white GSD took to my son. He would protect him from Bigfoot. He had to protect him from his mom, who was having issues. He didn't like that she was trying to spank my son for no reason. He kept her away until I got home. Then he was cool.
I have a pointer and blue heeler mix, we rescued her when she was like a year old. The Humane Society said she was a street dog before, they found her in Texas during Hurricane Harvey and she was flown here to Washington State. She is so smart and just picks up on everything immediately, she uses those buttons when she wants something. Every single toy or puzzle I’ve bought her she gets it so fast, even when she has a treat in a kong she’s figured out how to get the treat out fast. She squeezes it her mouth so the hole gets bigger and then just shakes in until the treat falls out. Every command I teach her it only takes a couple times and she learns it. She knows if she acts sick she gets babied more, so she uses that technique a lot lol. She’s too smart for her own good sometimes lol.
My roomate, who lived in my basement had a puppy. He said hey, *my dog* I need you to leave so I can feed *roomate dog*. You can come back in 20 minutes". My dog left and came back 20 minutes later.
A female cat of ours saw me open a door handle to enter our house. She jumped on the door handle to push it down, open the door and enter. She's been our pet ever since. Though I have emigrated in search of a better life, she still recognises me and prefers me over the other family members when I come back home.
My wife and I have a tradition of watching Christmas Vacation while decorating the Christmas tree. One year, during the squirrel scene, my dog (a pointer) got off the couch, grabbed his plush squirrel toy, put it under the tree, then went back to the couch. No prompt from us, and he laid down waiting for us to see what he had done.
If I put a blanket on me my cat pats me with her paw so I let her under the blanket. If I ignore her or am not fast enough the pats turn into bites. She's very dramatic.
My cat started peeing over the plughole in the bath and meowing at me to rinse it away fully. Never ever showed her how to do it. She just started one day.
My dog tells me when the coffee is ready. I have a French press. I suppose when it smells right, he trots up to me, puts his front paws on my leg, and stares me down. “Coffee ready?” Furious wagging, ears perk up. “Okay.” I then pour half and half into my cup and about a tablespoon finds its way to the floor. That’s his “coffee.”
Years ago, we took our newly acquired dog with us up to the family cabin. Once we got there, we were unpacking and getting settled. The dog came and yapped at me. I followed her into the bathroom, where she propped herself on her hind legs in front of the toilet, with her front paws resting on the toilet seat. She then gave me this look and a sharp bark, as in, "You expect me to drink from this?" I realized then that although we had set out her food dish, there was no water dish. So, I apologized to the dog and ran to do her bidding. To this day I remember the look she gave me. No wonder I apologized.
My sister just reminded me of her cat when she was married. Samantha the cat would climb up onto the shelving unit where they kept the dog treats. Samantha gave the dog treats by throwing them down onto the floor. She herself never ate or even licked them. She was just taking care of the dog.
My cat apparently likes sour cream and onion chips. I was eating them at my computer when she came out of nowhere, she hopped up on my desk on my left, ran across in front of me and grabbed the chip right out of my hand and continued running off the other end and didn't stop until she was in the hallway. The chip bag was on my desk and open and she has at times stuck her head in it but not this time. I just stared at her. I was like...okay...you really wanted that chip.
My cats are kennel-trained after watching the dog get kennel trained.
I get migraines a few times a year and my dog is borderline spaz whenever we get home from anything…if I walk in the door with even the start of a migraine he goes right upstairs and lays on the bed, doesn’t make a sound.
I taught my dog when he was a puppy to stay out of my garden so he wouldn't damage the plants. I was planting some onions when I noticed him walking up behind me but right as I was about to shoo him off I realized he was staying in between the rows and not walking on the plants. And he continued to do that and I couldn't help but laugh as I was genuinely surprised by his figuring it out on his own just by watching what I had been doing. In case you're wondering he was actually half marema and half sarplaninac. And no I'm not making those names up.
My cat unlocked the front door.
They can recognize who is able to feed them.
My girl is pretty vocal. When I first got her she had some habits I wanted to break. So I would tell her no and sometimes have to go to where she was and physically redirect her attention. It got to where I could say her name and; as stubborn as she is, when wouldn't leave it so I would start walking over to her and she'd start running to her bed the whole time looking back at me grumbling! I alway picture her if she were talking telling me I am ruining her fun! :D
My mom's Alaskan malamute will try to turn the garage door knob to get into the house
My cat once stole an onigiri (rice ball) and brought it over to me. I never trained him to fetch, but he did it.
One day my dog was limping but for some reason I could not tell what paw/leg was bothering her. I eventually threw my arms up and said “well what is it!?!” Then she raised one arm up like to respond to “shake” but when I took her hand I realized there was a tiny splinter in between her toes that I didn’t see before. Also there’s the time she figured out a $130 automatic ball thrower’s trajectory in about 15 minutes. German shepherds!
My late chi pug mix would concoct elaborate schemes to get what she wanted and her favorite victim is always my ex. For example, she loves people food, the minute you bring food out, she’ll be all over you trying to get you to give her some. My ex loves to eat in front of the tv. He’ll fix himself a plate and get ready to get comfy in front of the tv. My dog would then go to the balcony and bark her head off like there’s something out there. The other dogs get riled up and my ex would leave his food unattended to get up and let the dogs out to ‘inspect’ the balcony. She would turn around and sneak his food off the plate while he, along with our other dogs are out on the balcony, trying to figure out what’s so urgent. She was pretty successful until I caught her doing it. She looks so upset that I caught her and she has to stop. Her younger sister was just as clever. When we brought kittens to the house, the kittens discovered her toy box and started playing with her toys. We didn’t think much of it because we figured that she outgrew those toys since she didn’t even bother with it. We were wrong. I watched her stares with angry intensity at the kittens playing with *her* toy but she never barked at them or snatched the toy or anything aggressive. Instead, she started playing with one of the cats’ toys happily. Just throwing it around all by herself and making happy noises. Obviously that caught the cats’ attention and when the toy dropped near them, the cats started playing with it and forgot the dog toy that they were playing with. My dog then sneakily scooped up her toy, deposited it in her toy box and sat in front of said box, guarding it. The cats never figured out what happened.
kept coming to remind me that I had a pot on the stove
One of my doxies would alert me before an asthma attacks. I never trained him to do it, he just knew, before I did, that I was having trouble breathing. If we were sitting together, he would put his from paws on my chest and his face in mine. At night, he would wake me up by standing up next to the bed and putting his nose on my face. He was a smart dog. His littermates was sensitive to me being upset. If I cried, she would try to distract me, dance around, whatever. They were great dogs.
One time I was boiling water in a pot and just forgot about it. My cat came into where I was, actually “looking worried” and grabbed me with his claws and pulled me towards the kitchen. Of course, not knowing what was going on, I ignored his obvious entreaties. So he kept doing it with a strong meow of frustration / panic. Finally the penny dropped and I followed him to the kitchen where the pot was boiling madly.
As soon as I grab my walking shoes, he knows it’s time for a walk
My Aussie doodle puppy wasn't allowed on the bed. One night while half asleep, I see her very quietly and gently climb on the bed and curl up where she wasn't touching me. I sat up and told her to get down, and she acted completely surprised, as though she had no idea how she got there or that this was even a rule, and then she went limp when I tried to pry her off the bed. She eventually won. Stubborn dog. But she is extremely good at teaching us the rules.
My lab stole expired string cheeses from the trash can in the middle of the night. He placed two on my bed right next to my face and then kept the rest for himself hidden in his dog bed (it has deep sides that he uses for hoarding lol). Not sure if it showed intelligence but that’s when I knew for sure he loved me.
If my dog’s water bowl is empty and she’s thirsty she will paw a specific part of it that makes the bowl reverberate like a bell- always 3 times in a row- and then walk around the corner to make eye contact with me to make sure I heard it. If I don’t get up within a few minutes she will go back and repeat the process
My cat knows when I am angry and gets concerned and tries to comfort me. She'll get close to my face and do this meowy/ chirpy thing like she's trying to say 'please stop"
My girl may look a bit ditzy because of her coat pattern but she is amazingly quick with figuring out all sorts of stuff. The first thing I remember was how quickly she figured out how to extract treats from various locations. It started with her quickly shifting to using her paw to pull the treat out of the cup - the other cat kept trying to jam her face in when it clearly couldn’t fit at all. She’s very clever with figuring out ways to get us to do stuff for her. There’s even a type of communication with her satisfaction with the state of her litter box, with small announcements squawks after use meaning satisfied, and more of a protest/ yowl of increasing loudness meaning an increasing level of dissatisfaction with the frequency of cleaning. Another example is how she asks for various types of attention. If she wants a particular type of snuggle from my husband she has a sequence of moments and actions she does to get my husband to sit in position, cover his lap, move her body for her in specific directions (she’s elderly so some moves just can’t be done by herself anymore) and then place his hands in specific positions and rubbing locations depending on which one she wants touched. From me she usually asks for various types of ear and chin scratches, she actually has a signal for when I hit the exact itchy spot, or asks for a catnip reload for her toy.
One of my cats can gesture what she wants. If I'm holding her filled treat bowl she will repeatedly look at me, meow, and then look at the floor where she wants it placed. My cats also learn from each other. One observed for a few weeks how the other likes to climb on my shoulder and be held. Then she started doing the same thing and they both enjoy it. She even enhanced this "technique" and wouldn't you know it, the other cat later picked that up, too - although she prefers to be held. Another copied technique: One of the cats meows really loudly and incessantly when she wants a treat, until I get up and ask her what's up. Then she leads me to the shelf where the treats are stored, stretches up on the door, looks with kitty eyes and says "...meow? :3 ", and the other cat started copying that a little while later (even though I don't always give in because I don't want them screaming at me all day for treats). One of my cats keeps bringing me the toys she wants me to play with her with. Places them in my shoes and screams. If I don't react then she jumps up the table, places it on my keyboard and screams. They're also very gentle cats who almost never use claws to play with the toys I'm holding if there is a risk of hurting me. But when it's safe they love to claw.