Animals are fascinating creatures to me, I am always watching them, considering them, studying them, learning from them. They are not like us, but they are vastly more complex and thoughtful than I once believed, and in their own way. This morning, Chloe refused to go into the back pasture, which we had opened up for rotational grazing.
She stomped her feet, whinnied and stormed off to the side pasture, which she seems to prefer, there must be richer grass there. But there are some disputes the humans just have to win.
We ignored her, of course, on our farm the animals do not get to decide where they will graze, but I was struck by her strategizing, her efforts through body language, stares and whinnying to get us to open the gates just for her, and lure us away from the other pasture.
She stood there stubbornly for 10 minutes, then whinnied loudly and angrily and turned and gave in, running past us, ignoring us, and into the back pasture where we wanted her to go. Watching this, I thought of a wonderful new book I am reading by behaviorist and psychologist Frans De Wall of Emory University: “Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are?”
The book has inspired me and fascinated me and later this week I’m going to write a series of pieces on the blog of the question: how smart are our animals and are we smart and perceptive enough to understand them?
Chloe is very intelligent animal, she reads intentions like the donkeys and anticipates human behavior, I see this almost every day. RIght now, the smartest creatures on the farm are the donkeys, Chloe and Fate. Red is very intelligent but Fate is perhaps the smartest dog I have known. DeWall does not focus on dogs, but there are parallels and similarities, and I am fortunate to have different kinds of animals here on the farm to observe – barn cats, sheep, donkeys, a pony, border collies.
I learn something about the intelligence of these animals every day.
The donkeys continue to astonish me by the way the grasp situations, anticipate parting, adapt to human behavior. Fate has taken this issue to another level, I find myself talking to her without commands, and seeing how much can understand me. De Waal believes animals are much smarter than we have recognized, I will be excited to share this experience with you.
I can’t wait to write about them, I hoping to publish the series next Sunday or early in the next week (we are going away from Tuesday to Thursday.)