Intelligence is not the same thing as trainability. Trainability masquerades as intelligence, or is mistaken for intelligence.
Both have their place.
"Getting good grades" is a sign of trainability.
Doing tricks to amaze or amuse the humans is trainability.
A minimal amount of intelligence is necessary to be trainable-- you can't train a sponge-- but people seem to be more impressed, in general, by trainability than by actual intelligence.
Those who submit to training are rewarded and praised. Those who outsmart the ones who want to train them are often not appreciated. Or even punished.
I'm usually much more impressed by intelligence than by trainability. Even though I'd appreciate it if I were able to train my cats a little more.
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I was thinking of cats the moment I started reading this! I've noticed you can get cats to do what you want - provided you convince them it's in their best interest to do it. I had a cat who would lie down - not on command, but when I asked her to. You could tell she was thinking about it. That same cat had a basic concept of time. She might be campaigning for dinner and you could say "not time yet, it's in an hour," and she'd start asking again - in about an hour. Same with another cat I knew. He'd jump into my arms - when I invited him. They both had all kinds of things they could and would do, but it was more of a give-and-take type arrangement than anything like a command. -Roh
ReplyDeleteCats see it as a negotiation between equals.
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