OT - An Engineer's Guide to Cats

I don't believe it. Anyone who would conduct intelligence tests for dogs is biased. No possible evidence they come up with is valid.

Multiple sources over the years. Parrots, particularly the Yellow-naped Amazon and African Grey, have also been rated at two-year human intelligence levels. Ravens and crows score similarly.

I was going to say... I wouldn't be surprised if parrots (à la Alex) & crows (as in Betty, along with many other amazing tales of crows' abilities) are smarter than dogs (or cats).

Cathy

I had an interesting experience with a crow about thirty years ago. The bird (male/female?) was in the street on its back, near a residential intersection, being beaten by several other crows. All were flying up, then diving on this guy who appeared to be dead.

I stopped my VW bug and broke up the party. I grabbed a beach towel from the back seat and wrapped up the crow, still alive but pretty dazed, and drove him home. In the back yard, I wrapped a small towel around my left hand and used it as a make-shift glove. After unwrapping him from the towel and seeing no blood, I offered the wrapped hand to his feet, which grabbed onto the terrycloth, and then I pushed him up to a standing position.

That crow stayed with me in the yard for over a half-hour. I walked around, talked to him, and waited until it seemed like he knew who he was. I tossed my hand up to push him off, and away he flew.

I'd like to think his intellect served him well that day, and he sensed he was being helped. Who knows?

No way (for us) to tell... look alike.

was in the street on its back, near a

Interesting story. I wonder if s/he had transgressed in some way in the crow community - re: the ganging up by the others?

Besides Betty the crow's famous hook-fashioning to retrieve the little pail of food, I've read of crows which figured out to get nuts cracked open by placing them in the road, in line with oncoming cars. Of a group of crows who took turns rolling down a hill in a discarded large coffee cup - pure entertainment. And years ago, at a literacy workshop, Jean Craighead-George (children's author - Julie of the Wolves, etc.) related the story of Crowbar, a crow her family had nursed back to health, who wanted to use their daughter's backyard slide. She was watching out the kitchen window & witnessed him solve a problem: His birdie feet wouldn't allow him to slide down it, so he flew over to the daughter's sandbox, picked out a little aluminum pie plate that was in there & after placing it at the top of the slide, hopped in the pie plate & slid down the slide.

Cathy

I couldn't figure out the context. For a "translation" you'd have to get someone of "corvus" intellect. Say, Sop in Fla.? I could only presume the bird had violated avian protocol of some sort.

Also a good story. My father had a pet crow he'd raised as a boy. Similar stories were told as I grew up.

I used to see crows merely as large blackbirds. But after finding out more about them, find them quite fascinating.

Cathy

We've got them like fleas in San Diego. If you do as well, take the time to watch them, particularly if you can bait them with something edible that will take some work for them to actually get at the food.

Yes, plenty here; sometimes congregate in huge flocks during the winter, to roost in trees each night - looking for warmth in city limits.

Could be interesting to present a puzzle for them to figure out; but would probably need more time than presently have...

Along this line, but more in the agility dep't. vs. intellectual problem solving... approx. 10 years (or more?) ago there was a documentary sort of program called "Daylight Robbery" (and "Daylight Robbery II" - was on Discovery Channel, maybe?). Was about gray squirrels in the UK & US., & rather complicated (mostly aerial) obstacle courses which were set up for the squirrels to negotiate in order to reach food at the end of the course. The squirrels were extremely determined & eventually conquered the multiple - & challenging - obstacles of the courses. In NYC, a squirrel from Central Park had learned how to raid a nearby outside vending machine.

Cathy

Here's a PBS program about ravens. Smarter than even crows.

Thanks for this link; I missed that program.

Cathy