Pet Forum / Mammals / Rats / August 2003

I just had to share this...
**Butterfly

I have shared my home with dogs, a chinchilla, and a couple of
hamsters, not to mention the squirrels and birds that frequent my
feeders and who visited me on the patio. I now have two female guinea
pigs, Nudge and McShye; a semi-aquatic turtle, Shalagugi; and a
variety of tropical fishes. It has been my experience that guinea pigs
are intelligent, but they have their own priorities, depending on the
individual guinea pig's agenda.

Chinchillas are very intelligent and are interested in almost anything
humans do. They can sometimes be seen trying to mimic certain
behaviors. For example, Buddy, our late but great chinchilla, chewed
up our TV cable, and I had to replace it. I undertook the task while
Buddy was out and about. As soon as he saw the tools in my hand, he
came running to my side and watched as I put the ends on the new cable
and connected it to the TV and to the wall outlet. As soon as I
finished, Buddy went to the wall outlet and tried to work on the
connection himself. He tried to unscrew the connector from the outlet,
but it was too tight for him, and having no thumbs, just nubs, he
could not grip the connector to turn it. Still, every time he was out,
he would try to work on the cable connector.

When I was building his cage (a super-deluxe, two-story townhouse with
observation ledge of my own design), Buddy supervised its
construction. He checked to see that I had the proper tools for the
job, then checked each connection I made when I put the sides
together, checking the door to see that it swung properly on its
hinges, checking the latch to see how it worked (so he could let
himself out whenever he wanted), and finally, taking the grand tour
when it was finished.

Buddy liked mechanical things so much that I told my wife that he was
a reincarnated mechanical engineer.

When Buddy was not helping with or conducting his own construction
work, he would sit, like a furry Buddah, and contemplate the universe
and our places in it. He looked like a philosopher in meditation. He
would often "zone out" or go into a trance-like state while
meditating. When he was zoned out, you could not get his attention,
even wth a treat. He was deep in thought. When he had finished his
meditation, he was back to his old self, running through the house,
careening off the walls, climbing, and doing construction work. That
was our chinchilla.

Ms. Tisk, our hamster was a workaholic. She was constantly relining
and rearranging her bedroom--her nest box, taking out old decor and
replacing it with something prettier or more practical for storing her
cache of food. She was also fitness conscious, exercising in her wheel
on an almost obsessive scale. She was also very affectionate and loved
to be held and pampered by my wife. That was our late and beloved Ms.
Tisk, the hamster.

Shalagugi, our turtle, likes to climb and swim. She loves to play, and
she loves a challenge. Her favorite game is climbing vertical
surfaces. If she can get a claw hold, she can climb it. She also likes
to climb up my shirt or my wife's blouse and either perch on our
shoulder or snuggle on our chest with her face pressed against our
neck. The warmth, I think. She is four years old and has many more
years ahead of her. When we got her from a friend, she was about three
inches across. Now, she is almost six inches across and about 10
inches long. That is Shalagugi, our red-eared slider turtle. Her name
is Cherokee for a water turtle.

Nudge and McShye, our guinea pigs, both love to chew and explore. To
distract them from wires etc., we have an old cardboard box and other
chew toys for them to play with while roaming loose through the house.
There are also some doors we shut to keep them from getting lost or
hiding in hard to get to places. Both are very active, very healthy,
and use their imagination.

For example, when Nudge and Shalagugi were out together the first
time, Nudge became fascinated with Shalagugi's shell. It resembled her
igloo. My wife had set Nudge's igloo out on the floor for Nudge to use
if she wanted. After Nudge watched turtle for awhile and inspected her
shell, she went to her igloo and got inside. I was surprised when
Nudge, using her head to lift the front of the igloo off the ground,
tried to walk around carrying her igloo with her. She was mimicking
the turtle. Her logic, I suppose, was that if the turtle coudl carry
her igloo around with her, then she, Nudge, should be able to carry
her igloo around with her, too. After a few feet, though, Nudge
decided it was not such a great idea after all and abandoned the
project.

On other occasions, I have seen Nudge and McShye purposely flip their
igloos over and sit in them. For some reason, they decided they wanted
their igloos upside down.

There are countless other things that Nudge and McShye do that
indicate that they are constantly scheming and coming up with new
things to try. For the most part, though, guinea pigs seem to be
lovers of the high life of luxury and leisure. They love to lounge,
they love to eat, and they love to eat while lounging. They also like
for everything to be convenient, requiring the least amount of effort
possible to move from bed to water to food to restroom area and back
to the bed--or nest box, in their cases. Now, if THAT is not
intelligent, I don't know what is.

As you see, each creature is intelligent in its own right. ALL
creatures are as intelligent as they need to be to survive in their
own native habitat in the wild, and the fact that they have adapted to
domestic life and human conditions proves that they are pretty
adaptable, too.

Ask yourself these questions: "Who is really whose pet? And who is
smarter than whom?"

After all, the animal that we call our pet lives in the lap of luxury
if there ever was such a place. First of all, your pet is
supernatural, a practitioner of the occult arts. He or she cast a
spell on you and made you pay the price to bring him or her home; and
it did not stop there. You were so bewitched that you saw that every
need that your pet could possibly have were attended to from the very
start. You were bewitched into buying only the best and best tasting
foods, you avoid giving him or her any food that he or she does not
like, you see that your pet never has reason to be thirsty, never goes
hungry, and is given the best medical treatment, usually from a
specialist, if he or she gets even a sniffle. Your pet even has you to
bathe her, dry her with a luxurious bath towel, and groom her fur
afterward. You make sure your pet is never too cold or too hot, and
that every whim is attended to. So, who is the pet and who is the pet?
Who controls whom? Not only do your pets have you waiting on them hand
and foot, they have you footing the bill and loving every minute of
it.

Now, ask yourself: "How intelligent is my pet?" ;->

Al