Animal Insting

Remember how I told you that dolphins are the second smartest animals in the whole world, after chimpanzees?  Well, a couple of weeks ago, two dolphins proved exactly how smart they are by saving the life of a doberman pinscher.

And here's how it all happened.  This couple named Audrey and Sam D'Alessandro, who have a vacation home on Marco Island, in Florida, went out one morning to go fishing.  And when they went out, they saw these two dolphins in the canal behind their house.  Which is not unusual because dolphins are all the time swimming through the canal to get to the Gulf of Mexico.  But these dolphins were acting very strange because they kept staying in one spot by the canal wall and splashing a bunch, like they were trying to get somebody's attention.



So the D'Alessandros went over to see what was going on, and guess what!  There was a doberman in the canal, and he was standing on a sandbar, but the water was still halfway up over him, even though it was low tide.  He couldn't get out of the canal because of the high walls, and he was too weak to even bark.  But the D'Alessandros saw him because of the dolphins.  And Mrs. D'Alessandro climbed down into the canal onto the sandbar while her husband called the police.  And the dolphins swam away because their job was done.

Then everybody helped get the dog out of the canal.  He was so weak when he got out that he couldn't even stand up, but I think he was very happy to be out of the water.  His people were busy putting up Lost Dog posters when the police found them, and they hurried over to get their dog and take him home.  The name of the dog was Turbo.  He had been missing for 12 hours, and he probably spent several hours in the canal, so it's lucky he didn't drown.

It turned out that the D'Alessandros have a yellow lab, so they were glad they could save Turbo.  But Mrs. D'Alessandro says that mostly it was the dolphins who saved Turbo.

So that's the end of this happy story, and the moral is that you should try never to fall into a canal, but if you do, make sure there are some dolphins around to help rescue you.

Piper asked me if I wanted to write about the early spring Adventures While Walking, but I wasn't sure how to do it.  She said it was easy.  You just get Mom to take a bunch of pictures while you are out walking, and then you talk about them in the blog.  So that's what I'm going to do.  And I am also going to use a few pictures that Mom took while she was walking Barry and Mel, because they were nice enough to say I could do that.  I just wish the pictures were scratch-and-sniff, because what a dog is really interested in is how things smell, and not so much how they look.  Well, unless you're looking for a squirrel to chase!

It was trash day yesterday, which is a very interesting time to go for a walk, because there's lots of garbage and food and fascinating stuff to smell.  And that's in addition to the regular sniffable stuff that is always out there.  I was really amazed to see what people will throw away!


Hey!  Somebody had pizza, and I didn't get any!


Mom thought this tree was pretty cool-looking because of the fungus on it.  But I was more interested in checking out the p-mail at the base of the tree.


What's up with these people?  Are they some kind of dog haters?  Mom said maybe they don't hate dogs, but just hate picking up poop in their yard.  She might be right about this, but I still have my doubts.


This is a big hole in the ground that got covered up with some pieces of plywood.  Mom told me that there is a water main here that has been leaking for several years, and finally last fall the water department started fixing it.  But they didn't finish before cold weather came, so the big hole has been there all winter.


We saw a flicker on top of a chimney, and he was singing loudly to tell everybody that was his territory.  Then sometimes he pecked on the metal cover of the chimney, just to emphasize his point.


Wow!  What happened here?  We don't know how this fence fell down, but Mom said maybe a car ran into it.


There are a few people who still haven't taken their Christmas decorations down, but hey, it's only March, so why hurry?


Mel and Barry like to pee on this Christmas wreath whenever they go by.


Some people not only took their Christmas stuff down, but they are ready for St. Patrick's Day.


We saw daffodils coming up, and even a few crocuses blooming.


Then we saw this one house where everything is not only up, but it's blooming like crazy.  Mom was really surprised until she figured out that all the flowers were in pots.  She said that meant they had been "forced" to grow and bloom indoors.  I don't know much about plants, but this sounds kind of cruel to me!


Here's a really cool house that's only about a block from where we live.  Mom calls it "The Castle."  One time she got to talk to the man who lives there, and he said the house was built in about 1912 by a man who was a stone mason.  So that's why it has lots of nice brickwork and stonework in it.  During the summer, we can't see The Castle very well because it has a high fence around the yard, and Virginia Creeper grows all over the fence and blocks the view.


The weather vane on top of The Castle has owls on it.  I think it would be better to have greyhounds, but nobody asked me!


When we got up this morning, we found that somebody had thrown copies of The Thrifty Nickel in everybody's driveway.  This only happens occasionally, and we don't know why, but it happened today.  Mom picked our copy up and put it in the recycling bin, but some people just drove over their copies when they were leaving for work.


Mom and Mel and Barry went by to check on their favorite group, St. Francis and the Gnomes.  But they were surprised to see that St. Francis wasn't there anymore.  Instead, the group is now made up of the Virgin Mary and the Gnomes.  We don't know what happened to poor St. Francis.  Maybe he got kidnapped or maybe he froze to death during the winter.  Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter too much, as long as the poor little gnomes have somebody to watch over them.


This house is getting all fixed up so that maybe somebody will actually want to live there.  Ever since Mom has been in the neighborhood, this house has been for sale.  Sometimes someone will buy it and they do a little work on it and then they try to sell it again.  But no one has really lived in it.  Finally last fall the house got auctioned off because of foreclosure.  So now it's for sale again, but it's also getting worked on in a major way.


When you look at the dumpster, you can tell that a whole bunch of bad stuff got torn out of the house.  Mom is curious to see what it looks like inside, but there haven't been any open houses yet.


Well, okay, that is all of the Adventures While Walking for today.  Mom took this last picture of me heading up the driveway so that everybody could see how many annoying sweetgum balls there are in our yard.  Every time Mom thinks she can get out there and rake them up, it starts raining or snowing again.  But I wish she'd hurry up and do it because I don't like stepping on them any more than Mom does!

After I wrote about the smartness of dogs yesterday, I started wondering which animals were the smartest ones in the whole world. Of course, I was sure that dogs were the smartest, but when I found a list on the Animal Planet site of the Top Ten Smartest Animals, I was really shocked to see that dogs weren't on the list at all.  And neither were cats.  Or horses.  So I'm thinking that there is some huge mistake in this list, but I'm going to tell you what it says anyway, and you can decide for yourself.

Number 10:  THE RAT
Rats are all the time being used in labs to run through mazes and stuff like that, but they can often find shortcuts or ways to escape from these tests.  Which is funny because the scientists who thought up the tests are supposedly very intelligent.  Rats have figured out how to live on every continent except Antarctica.  The Chinese think rats are clever and resourceful, which is why there is a Year of the Rat.  So for all these reasons, rats are one of top ten smartest animals.

Number 9:  THE OCTOPUS
I couldn't believe that such a weird-looking thing that lives way down in the ocean could possibly be smarter than a dog, but I guess that's what the scientists think.  Octopi have fairly big brains, with folds and lobes and separate parts to deal with seeing and with touching.  Octopi are curious about all kinds of stuff, and they like to play.  Also they can solve problems such as opening a jar lid or finding their way through a maze.


Number 8:  THE PIGEON
Pigeons have been studied a lot, and the reason for that is because there are so darned many of them.  They can learn to recognize hundreds of different images, and they can remember these images several years later.  If they look in a mirror, they can figure out that they are seeing themselves and not some other pigeon.  Also they can learn to do several movements in a special order.


Number 7:  THE SQUIRREL
It's hard for me to believe that an animal who is always getting run over in the street can be Number 7 on the Smartest List, but I am just reporting the results of my research.  Of course, anybody who ever had squirrels living in their attic will know that these animals can be very clever at getting into places.  Also squirrels have learned to live close to people and to get food by stealing it out of the bird feeder or eating garden flowers.  In the fall, squirrels hide hundreds of nuts, and then they remember where they hid them, so they can go back and eat them later.  And sometimes they only pretend to hide a nut because they want to trick any other squirrel or animal who might steal it.  Oh, and here's something interesting about squirrels who live in California:  sometimes they cover their fur with the scent of rattlesnakes so that the snakes will be fooled and not eat them.


Number 6:  THE PIG
Pigs can learn to live in all kinds of different conditions, and they can pretty much eat whatever type of food is around, so this is a big advantage for them.  Pigs can also learn to do tricks, just like dogs and cats can, but I have to say that I have never heard of a pig doing agility.  Back in the 1990s, some pigs learned to do tests on a computer by using their snouts to move the cursor around and show which scribble on the screen was new and which one they already knew.  When they did these tests, they learned them as fast as chimpanzees did.


Number 5:  THE CROW
These big black birds can make all kinds of interesting sounds to talk to each other, and sometimes they even play tricks on each other.  They can make tools out of stuff like twigs and feathers, and then they use the tools to get hold of food that is hard to reach.  Sometimes crows who live in the city will gather nuts from the trees and then put them in the street so that cars can run over them and crack them open.  There are scientists who think that crows are even smarter than chimpanzees.


Number 4:  THE ELEPHANT
Elephants have been known to use tools sometimes, and also to clean their food.  They are curious about all kinds of things, and they are very caring to other members of their herd or even to other species.  They like to play in water, and they can communicate with vibrations that they feel through
their feet.  In captivity, elephants can learn to do tricks and obey commands.  Some elephants have recognized themselves when they looked in a mirror.


Number 3:  THE ORANGUTAN
Great apes are thought to be very smart, and orangutans may be the most intelligent of the apes.  They have strong social bonds with other members of their group, and can communicate well with each other.  Young orangutans stay with their mothers for many years while they learn everything their mothers can teach them.


Number 2:  THE DOLPHIN
Dolphins are very social and easy to train, which is why they are in so many shows such as Sea World.  Whole schools of dolphins like to play around with each other, doing stuff like leaping, surfing, and whistling.  They can talk to each other with a special dolphin language, and humans have only just started understanding a little of this language.  Dolphin babies stay with their mothers for several years so they can learn a whole bunch of stuff.


Number 1:  THE CHIMPANZEE
Chimps are the great apes that are the most like humans, so of course they are first on this list of smart animals that humans put together.  But I have to admit that chimpanzees can do some pretty amazing things.  First of all, they can make tools and use them, and they are good at solving problems.  They live in groups that are well organized, with a chief chimp and then everybody else in some position below that.  People have been able to teach chimps sign language, and then the chimps were able to join words together into sentences.  A group of chimps can make war on another group, kind of like people do, but they can also be sympathetic and caring to each other.


So anyway, there it is, the list of the Top Ten Smartest Animals.  I still think it was a mistake to leave dogs out, but I'm not sure who I should complain to about this.  As soon as I find the person who made the mistake, I'll ask them to fix it!

Well, guess what, there's this guy who thinks he's really clever because he has a PhD, and he made a list of a 110 dog breeds in order of how smart they are.  This man's name is Stanley Coren, and he put this list in a book called The Intelligence of Dogs.

The way he figured out how smart these dogs are was that he had a bunch of people who usually judge dog obedience trials give the dogs scores according to how good they were at learning commands and then following the commands.

This border collie can't think of anything to do until somebody gives him a command.

So the dogs who are supposedly "smart" are good at doing whatever a human wants them to do, but is that what it really means to be "smart"?  In my opinion, it takes lots more intelligence to think up things to do all by yourself, without someone giving you commands.  And the smartest dogs of all are probably the ones who can figure out how to get away with doing stuff their human doesn't want them to do, such as stealing food off the counter or opening the refrigerator door or unlatching the gate.

But I don't have a fancy PhD in neuropsychology, so what do I know?


Anyway, now I will tell you the whole list of dogs, from smartest to dumbest, according to Dr. Coren.  The top 10 dogs are the "brightest" because they learned a new command in fewer than 5 repetitions.  Then they obeyed the command at least 95% of the time.

This poodle is smart enough to find the best napping place in the house!

  1.  Border Collie
  2.  Poodle
  3.  German Shepherd
  4.  Golden Retriever
  5.  Doberman
  6.  Sheltie
  7.  Labrador Retriever
  8.  Papillon
  9.  Rottweiler
10. Australian Cattle Dog