Posted on 12/05/2017 7:36:59 PM PST by MtnClimber
Dogs and raccoons are among the most intelligent animals on Earth, according to a new investigation of mammal brains.
ntelligence is hard to define in humans, but much less in other animals. One reason is that all species have evolved to be as “smart” as is necessary for their survival. In fact, some of the most populous animals on the planet have relatively unimpressive brains. “Mice have tiny brains with few neurons and, if asked, they would certainly say that they're doing very well, thank you,” Suzana Herculano-Houzel of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute told Seeker. Dogs have average-sized brains, so when Herculano-Houzel and her colleagues recently compared them to those of other mammals, they were shocked by the resulting data. It turns out that dogs have about twice the number of cerebral cortex neurons as cats. “To put our findings into context: we humans have twice the cortical neurons that gorillas have,” said Herculano-Houzel, whose work on primates is outlined in the book The Human Advantage. “So, our new study provides reason to expect that dogs have the biological capability for much more complex and flexible behavior than cats do.”
She explained that there is a direct correlation between total numbers of cortical neurons and intelligence, given that neurons are the information-processing units in the brain. She added that the cerebral cortex is the part of the brain that can combine information from different sources and create new associations, recognize patterns, make decisions to act differently based on past experience, and start to make predictions for the future. “For that reason,” she continued, “whatever species has the most neurons in the cerebral cortex is therefore expected to be capable of more complex and flexible behavior.”
(Excerpt) Read more at seeker.com ...
Now THAT captures it precisely.
> Dogs are smart. Cats are sneaky smart. <
Excellent summation!
IMO...........
One of my dogs bit a black bear in the back leg to chase it off our deck and the bear never came back. Can a cat do that or is a cat too smart to try that? Inquiring minds want to know.
And an Aunt Sig....
And an Uncle Winchester.....
True story and a first-hand account of what I witnessed with my own eyes.
When I was 10 years old I found myself watching Great Dane that was barking up at my cross-breed Siamese/Tabby cat which was sitting on the back of a flatbed truck.
As I watched the great Dane barking furiously, my cat sat there nonchalantly licking his pawn like nothing was happening. After a few minutes, when my cat was tired of it, he literally lept off the truck onto the face of this Great Dane, locked its front paws onto the ears of his victim, and the proceeded to rake the shit out of that dog's face with his back claw.
Needless to say, that dog did nothing but whine and ineffectually try to get my cat off of its head. I watched in awe as my cat made that dog his bitch until he was tired of it. When my cat was done, that dip-shit dog could only watch that cat walk away with his tail held up high and never looking back.
LOLOLOLOLOL, this FR post of the day, you had me laughing.
When I worked in a truck shop my boss had a boxer that was a shop dog. One friend of ours had a yellow lab and another friend had a Rottweiler. The lab and the rottie were both noticeably smarter than the boxer. One of the games we played with them was throwing a brake diaphragm (similar to a frisbee) and all three dogs would race to fetch it. If you just pretended to throw it the lab and rottie would be out there a hundred yards looking for it. The dumb boxer would still be beside you staring at you waiting for you to throw it.
Intelligence is subjective.
Kittehs are plenty smart. They know how to train their humans to cater to their whims. I’ve been well-trained for years. LOL
Dogs live outside in many occasions in a dog house. So few cats have to do that that they chose to use the name for something else.
Dogs need people to let them out. Cats don’t need anyone.
rwood
True. Animals tend to be fully intelligent enough for their various needs.
I like both cats and dogs; they have different kinds of intelligence, and even different ways of expressing “affection” for their owners. These things can’t be measured/judged as greater or lesser, as if on a balance scale.
“Sneaky”
... and vindictive. They don’t get mad, they get even.
“The dumb boxer would still be beside you staring at you waiting for you to throw it.”
As dumb as a human,eh? :-)
.
> Can a cat do that or is a cat too smart to try that? Inquiring minds want to know. <
Check out this brief video: Cat Rescues Little Boy From Dog Attack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRhV8YoEUqA
LOL! No kidding!!
Now that’s corny!
Hey, I’m outnumbered! I don’t have a choice! LOL
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