By Lanny Morgnanesi.
Animal intelligence is very much underrated.
Even when a creature does something really smart, humans just say it’s instinct – which suggests it does not involve real intelligence.
Human’s cannot grasp the full intelligence of animals because, I think, they don’t know the source of that intelligence. It would seem to me that it is the brain working with senses we don’t have and therefore don’t understand.
It would be like an alien coming to Earth. Suppose we didn’t flat out shoot him. Suppose we allowed him (her or it) to do something. We probably wouldn’t understand why or how it was done because we wouldn’t understand the physiology of the creature – especially if it was not anthropomorphic.
Same with animals.
When you live with them, however, you become very accepting of their intelligence. While they aren’t likely to grab paper and pencil and compose a sonnet, they seem to be aware of all that is going on in the household … when people fight, when they are sick, when there is something to fear and how to protect yourself against it, when someone is gone and when someone returns … the basic elements of life.
I have a cat that is getting old and can’t jump like he used to. So when he wants to get up on the counter, he cries. I, being intelligent, immediately know what he wants. But here is my question, and the reason for writing this post: Can anyone tell me how the cat knows I have the intelligence to understand his cry?
For the animal to know that alone takes a lot of intelligence.
NotebookM 
Please! It’s a cat. It licks its butt. If it is smart, teach it about fecal-oral transmissions of disease and persuade it to stop that nastiness.
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