More on the intelligence of animals

The library has a good book called "How Smart are Animals". It defines intelligence, behavior, cognition, instinct, learning, consciousness, and awareness, and then gives a summary of controlled experiements and anecdotal evidence of the intelligence of animals. It carefully analyzes each experiment and anecdote - explaining what the evidence may tell of animal intelligence, but also providing caveats of what might be misinterpreted.

Some of the most interesting stories:

1. Some experimenters placed a small cardboard box in an enclosure, lying on its side, and placed a food dish in the box, so that one fourth of the food dish was sticking out of the box. Then they brought in a wolf cub. (They tried this four times, with four different wolf cubs). All of the cubs were able to get the food out of the box. Then they gradually increased the difficulty of the experiment. They put the food dish entirely in the box with a wooden dowel attached. Three of the wolf cubs figured out how to pull the food out using the dowel. Then, they tried the same experiment with four puppies. None of the puppies solved the experiments. When they found the food in the box, they simply pushed the box to the experimentars and begged them to give the food. After a while, when it didn't work, they just sat and waited until the two minutes for the experiment were up. The dogs are smart - they know they don't really need to expend the effort to get the food! :-D

2. There was a facility that tested lab monkeys during the day. During the night, when the experimenters slept, the monkeys were placed in an enclosure. One night, the monkeys found a pole in the enclosure, and used it to get out of the enclosure and escape!

3. One family had a dog that slept in the living room. When a fire broke out in the utility room, the dog clawed and chewed its way through the wall to the utility room, ran through the smoke to the daughter's bedroom, and woke the daughter up.