Perhaps it was the discovery that bees could count up to four that made me think about intelligence in the natural world. A friend still doubts the studies of Queen Mary University, London that shows the mathematical ability of bees, but it was a beekeeper who explained the dance that the scouts do to indicate the distance to the nectar.
Given such a capacity among bees, it should not have come as a surprise that dogs seem considerably more intelligent than I had imagined.
The long secondary school summer holidays in Ireland (June, July and August), meant being able to spend eleven weeks in Somerset, during which time the Arthurian dogs in the house, Guinevere and Galahad became accustomed to a routine.
A Maltese and a Chihuahua, they are dogs that love company and comfort, and they love carers who can tell the time as well as them.
Lunch is at midday and dinner is at five o’clock. A delay of more than a few minutes will prompt a barked reminder that their meal is due.
In the summer, the dogs decided that a third snack was in order, that a small snack would be welcome at around 8.30 each evening. In the middle of an ITV 3 episode of Vera or Midsomer Murders, Guinevere would assume the role of messenger and appear in the room. The request was made with a brief bark or pawing of my leg. Once the chew was given, they would run off contentedly.
The Halloween mid-term break brought a return to Somerset on the Saturday, and at around 8.30 pm, I was sat chatting with my son who had come on the trip. There came the sound of dogs’ paws running across the tiles of the kitchen floor. The dogs appeared and there was the customary bark.
It had been nine weeks since I had last been in the house. How on my first evening back, did the dogs remember not only the treats but also the time at which they might hope to receive a chew?
Perhaps the daily routine of lunch and dinner are more memorable, like humans perhaps their stomachs tell them the approximate time?
But the treats? There had been no routine for more than two months, no-one keeping up the habit of the chews. How did they remember not just that I was a soft touch but that at 8.30 they could expect a response?
Fascinating, thanks.
Sadly, since moving from Somerset to a large town in west Wiltshire, I notice that our local bees can only count to three, but that does reflect some of the education here!
A beekeeper friend says that the bees will organise themselves to prevent the entry of a wasp to the hive.
I have read that crows will use road traffic to crack nuts.
They took this to another level by dropping nuts on pedestrian crossings and waiting for the audible pedestrians-can-cross-now beeper before swooping down to safely claim their reward.
Certainly crows enjoying road kill seem able to judge the speed and likely arrival time of vehicles. They always depart just before the vehicle reaches them. You hardly ever see a squashed one.
I love the Horrible Histories version of the death of Aeschylus, on which water was poured by Britannica, ‘A ludicrous story that he was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald pate was presumably fabricated by a later comic writer’.