What are some signs of smarts in the animals in your lives, and do you think animals have more intelligence than we give them credit for?NEWS | 27 February 2026I'd offer this anecdotal observation of animals in enriched environments. When I grew up, dogs were objects with specific parameters to how we related to them. They were "pets", there to fill a limited role in our lives, and when we were finished with them, going into their pens until we needed them again. (The pens were sizeable, but had very limited stimulation.) After my mid-20's, I didn't have dogs again.
Cut to my second marriage many years later. My wife wanted to get dogs, and insisted the dogs be treated as intelligent beings with needs and potentials of their own. I was game to do it and see what happened. The dogs are cross breeds, like all the ones we had when I was a kid.
They live with us as family, receive daily enrichment activities - usually multiple enrichment ones daily - and are treated as intelligent beings with a capacity for communication. Their ability to "read" our feelings, learn words from listening to us, communicate their wants and needs to us, and pick up complex concepts (such as pointing in the direction of a wanted object), is SO far beyond anything I saw in the dogs of my youth.
I feel embarrassed now at how I objectified dogs in my youth and completely failed to see their potential, just as with all objectification of intelligent beings.Author: Kate Wong. Source
