Reply #22: One of my three cats

[geniph]

actually understands quite a bit of spoken English - not just the tone, the actual words. If you chastise her or make fun of her - even if your tone is perfectly even - she'll answer you back with her "sassing" bitchy little meows. It's the girl cat; they tend to be a bit smarter than boy cats (they have to be). One of the two boy cats understands quite a few words - bug, treat, in, down, sit up, stuff like that. Things he has motivation to understand. The third cat - well, he's sweet, but he's dumber than a bag of hammers.

Animals vary in intelligence from individual to individual just as humans do. I've seen dogs that could probably solve differential equations if they could use pencils, and other dogs that were one step above a lawn chair, barely qualifying as an animate object.