Animal Intelligence

BlogPaws West begins today, and I have a million and one things I need to get done, so just a quick post about this TIME magazine article about the minds of animals. Did you see it? It. Is. Fascinating!

My three favorite parts?

1. Kanzi, a bonobo, wanted the journalist to have coffee with him. (Never mind the question about whether we should be giving an ape coffee).
2. That when asked if he was ready to play after the reporter went to get his ball, Kanzi replied (by pointing at word/image flashcards) “Past ready.”
3. That the bonobos studied in Iowa have learned to combine words/images (on flash cards) they know into unfamiliar concepts, like calling floods “big water.”

At some point, I want to write about “theory of mind” research and a dissertation I read recently that argues that dogs DO have a very basic “theory of mind,” which is a kind of intelligence and awareness, but we’ll have to save that for a day when I have more time and mental bandwidth.