Animals aren’t stupid, they just don’t have everything humans do. They can understand intent sometimes. The real unusual thing is how the cat cared. Most would probably understand the assignment, but choose to see how far things would go.
Talk to animals like they’re not inferior dipshits and you find out how much you’ve been making them into them.
I got a bunch of hens. A few of them like to break out of their enclosed space and wander around the yard. Normally, I’m not too upset with it, but we are trying to grow grass and get the garden started, and they don’t really help with either.
But when I see them out the window, I call them out by name and they start walking back towards their enclosure and wait for me to open the gate.
I refuse to believe my chickens have that level of awareness
They are fascinating if you just get stoned and watch them for a while. Like watching a telenovela about dinosaurs and not understanding a word of Spanish. They’re all so expressive that you really don’t need to know the dialogue, you can just figure it out. They’ve all got personalities and attitudes and a whole social structure.
Yours don’t
So true
I don’t know if it’s a fluke or what, but one time I decided to bake cookies so I started the oven and walked away in typical silly goose fashion. I got distracted upstairs and my cat barged in my office screaming and acting unusually agitated. So I followed her, she led me to the kitchen where the oven has been preheating for a good 45 minutes.
She got extra dreamies this day.
Maybe she could smell something strange.
😀 this is awesome. Animals know when things are out of the ordinary. On occasion my dog will stare back at our front door and refuse to leave for the walk. It usually means I forgot something inside.
They have a vocabulary and knowledge of the environment… Just not a large vocab.
You can get talking buttons and train pets to develop a shared kind of understanding of language and express wants/needs.
Here’s a podcast of someone’s experience:
My cat would just be pushing the “I want food” button all day, even though she’s already got food in her bowl.
(But she wants new food!)
The cat might want a specific food from its past.
I believe one cat started pushing “plant cylinder” because they were once fed pumpkin from a can.
I often talk to my cat, sometimes in human language sometimes in meows, he usually answers back. In the morning he will usually wake us up when he’s hungry with a series of meows and during the day will meow until I follow him to the kitchen where he will then point out if he wants food or his water changed in the water bowl (he cleans his paws in there).
