Every now and then an animal, either a pet or a wild creature, outsmarts humans.
A naturalist studying the behavior of chimps put one in a playroom with swings, tricycles, Jungle Gyms, etc. Then he went outside, locked the door–they were using skeleton keys then–and crouched outside the door, with pencil and clipboard at the ready, to take notes on the behavior of the chimp.
You know what he saw when he peeked through the keyhole?
The chimp peeking through the keyhole, back at him!
I’d like to hear about others’ experience with animals–dogs, cats, horses, fish, even microbes–who have almost literally made monkeys of Homo sapiens. :o
“If you drive an automobile, please drive carefully–because I walk in my sleep.”–Victor Borge
I used to rough house with my dog, and after a while, everytime i’d get up to go tackle him–somehow he’d know and get up and move. He never moved when i was getting up to get something to eat or go to the bathroom, but he knew somehow when i was getting up to tackle him. I ate shit many times because he’d wait for me to make my move then jump out of the way.
We live in an age that reads to much to be wise, and thinks too much to be beautiful–Oscar Wilde
That’s because dogs are very attuned to body language. He sensed the tension in you. Even if you tried to remain casual, the dog woud probably sense that it was a front.
One night I was awoke by my dog barking madly at the garage door. I had had problems with raccoons digging in my garbage, so I grabbed a pellet gun and flashlight and headed in.
We start poking around the inside of the garage and I can distinctly hear scratching from behind an old bookcase. I poke the flashlight in the space between the bookcase and the wall and see something furry and brown, smaller than a raccoon but bigger than a mouse. “Yikes! A rat!” I think (I’m not a big fan of rats).
At the same time my dog (a really big golden retriever) has gone around to the other side if the bookcase and gives a loud bark. The furry horror turns in my direction, leaps RIGHT at my head. I make a noise (something like “GUHHEAH!!”) and flail my arms around spastically. I drop the flashlight, which rolls under the car. The pellet gun goes off and hits the fluresent light above me. I’m showered with glass and white dust.
So, I’m stuck in the dark with a neurotic dog and this THING and theres NO FUCKING WAY I’m gonna’ put my exposed hand under the car to fish out the flashlight. I hear the think skittering aound in the broken glass so I say “fuck it” and blindly move twards where I think the door is, and manage to get the car antenna right in the face (it rebounds, repeatedly hitting me in the nose in Three Stooges fashion). Finally I hit the garage door opener button, and a fuzzy squirrel shoots over my bare feet (another “Guhheah!” noise) and out the door, closely followed by my dog.
Well my cat didn’t make a monkey out of me, but I did turn into a whirling dervish.
He was just a kitten at the time, and of course loved to wake me up by attacking my feet when they moved under the covers. So I got rid of him and moved on to the bathroom.
While I’m in the middle of shaving, he decides to leap on my bare back. Once there, he realizes that Newton was right, and so uses his claws to defeat gravity.
It’s a good thing that I wasn’t using a straight-edge razor at the time.
La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l’on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l’on dit.
H. de Livry
