25 Times People Were Almost Creeped Out By Their Pet’s Keen Intelligence

I really noticed how intelligent animals can be after taking in a stray dog during a difficult economic period and sheltering him in my garage. One particularly dark night, as I was reversing, this usually silent and stern dog suddenly let out a high-pitched yelp, causing me to slam the brakes. On checking, I found I had misjudged my angle, and had he not alerted me I would have been scraping against the wall in the next second. From that night on, he happily took up the role of my parking helper—a duty he still faithfully performs. For years, we have clearly underestimated our pet companions. Recently, a Redditor asked online, “Pet owners, what was that moment that made you think “wow, I have severely underestimated the intelligence of my pets?” Now, as more people share their experiences online, it’s increasingly clear that our pets are much more intelligent than we once assumed. We’ve collected a few stories from owners who realised their pets may possess surprising levels of cognition and understanding, and shared these fascinating insights in the gallery below. 

#1

Image source: nrz242, EyeEm / freepik A couple years ago I got talked into adopting an elderly, arthritic amazon parrot with chronic sinusitis. It's very much like having a special-needs toddler. He was cagebound for a long time, and not well socialized. He only ever said 3-4 words (hello, wow/woo, uh-oh, and bird) but mimics a variety of other bird sounds. He picked me as his personal assistant but also got along well with my husband, although they rarely interact closely. Last summer, my husband went on a short trip and the parrot barely seemed to notice. After my husband got back, we settled in for some food and to chat about the trip. The bird was perched inconspicuously next to us. During a lull in the conversation, he made a low throat-clearing sound and then said with perfect clarity "Where'd you go?" We both almost fell out of our chairs but I'm so glad I had a witness or I'd spend the rest of my life second guessing what I'd heard. The bird has never said this, or any other full sentence, since then.

#2

Image source: Icky-Tree-Branch, EyeEm / freepik My husband had a dog… she was our first baby. (She was supposed to be mine, but my husband became her person.) She was a border collie/husky cross we think, and was beautiful, smart, well-trained, and fabulous with our kids. But she impressed me most with her malicious compliance. She’d started eating what the kids (still tiny back then) would leave on the table. I got mad and told her to stop eating off the table… so she picked up the bowl with left over mac n cheese in it, put it on the floor, and then ate the food. I couldn’t even be mad; she did exactly what she was told. She’s been gone for 10 years now. We still miss that girl. Best dog ever, and a great nanny dog with the kids. .

#3

Image source: Zealousideal-Rent-77, pvproductions / freepik I taught our Labrador to shut the back door when she came in from the yard. We'd leave the door just barely unlatched so the AC wasn't escaping and she could nose it open and come in whenever she wanted. Once she was in, she'd push the door fully shut and go find a human who would have heard the door bang shut so that she could get a treat. (We had convenient little treats in candy jars in most of the places people spent time). Then she started shutting the pantry or bathroom door then going to claim a treat from someone in another room. I also taught my dog to find my keys for me. (Actually she would go fetch or point to anything I asked for if she knew the word for it or could figure out what we were lazily pointing to, which is why we had convenient treat stashes in case we wanted her to hand us the remote or whatever). For about a week it was great! If I didn't know where I'd put my keys, I'd just ask her "Where are the keys? Get the keys!" Fell down in the couch? no problem, she'd sniff them out. Then she realized there were always keys on the pegboard where I was *supposed* to be putting my keys, so instead of finding MY keys, she'd just go get *any* keys.

#4

Image source: Troooper0987, EyeEm / freepik My little Havanese, he came out of the vet after a teeth cleaning. The vet said no water for a while. He was groggy and we asked if he wanted a walk or to go home. He turned down the hill towards riverside park. So we were like ok, let’s go for a walk. He was intent. Almost pulling us down the hill over the pedestrian bridge over the Train tracks and took a left towards the basketball courts and restroom. He pulled us to a waterfountain with one of those dog bowl attachments and sat down. Looked at us and looked back at it. He defied the vets orders and gave him a little water. He’d only been to that water fountain once, years before and never from the vet. Hes got incredible spacial memory we’ve found, he knows the highway exits near his favorite places, he remembers which apartment buildings his favorites of our friends live in, and he’s VERY vocal and communicative of his needs and wants with everything from squeaks, buffs, barks, growls, and chirps. Hes 12 now, and still going strong. He’ll do 5 mile hikes with us.

#5

Image source: AdventurousTeaCup, EyeEm / freepik I had made a sandwich and set it down on the coffee table, my dog was watching me and then start barking and ran to the front door. I assume there must be someone there so I go down the hallway and my dog runs back towards the living room, I open the door and no one is there. Went back to the living room to find my lunch gone and dog pretending to be asleep in his bed, he was squinting and would shut his eyes when I looked straight at him. I got tricked and robbed by a dog who then had the brains to pretend to be asleep. Genius, a thieving scoundrel but a genius one at that.

#6

Image source: 732, EyeEm / freepik I had two dogs, about 6 years difference in age. The older one would take all the toys/etc from the younger one, then go on her own way to play with it. The younger one eventually learned that if he wanted to play with something, he should first go grab a toy that he didn't want, she'd come take it from him, then he would grab his favorite. They'd both have what they wanted.

#7

Image source: filthyantagonist, 24K Production / freepik My partner built a really robust dog fence around the yard so our lab mix could let himself out the dog door to sun himself while we were at work. One afternoon, we caught the dog nonchalantly sneaking through a hole in the fence. "Uh, buddy, what are you doing?" He froze with the most horrified expression on his goofy dog face and slowly turned to see if we were, indeed, aware that he was sneaking out. Busted. Turns out, he had been letting himself out for walks around the neighborhood for MONTHS and always making sure to get home before we did. He knew he wasn't supposed to do it, so he tried to keep it secret from us. The only reason he got caught was that he was so comfortable with it that he forgot it was our day off. The neighbors later confirmed that he was extremely well behaved and they assumed we were just allowing it. Truly, he was the best boy.

#8

Image source: PM_ME_UR_HIP_DIMPLES, twenty20sparkasse / freepik My mom passed from cancer about 15 years ago. Our cat MAMA (MAMA cat needs to be in all caps because she was BIG MAMA, a 21 pound tabby) would sit on laps in the living room and only ventured to the kitchen to eat from her bowl or to the bathroom. She never went upstairs, mostly because she was a portly little soul and because she was 12. She was antisocial with most people and trotted away from everyone but me and my mom most of the time, even hissed and swatted at most. Anyway, my mom moved out to my grandma's house to do hospice as things finally got to the end. MAMA walked around meowing at home whenever I saw her there (I moved into Grandma's to help take care of Mom but would go home to get clothes and this and that and feed MAMA and do the kitty litter) shuffling around at a much faster speed than normal like she was worried. When my mom finally let go we didn't go home at all that week. My godmother did the cat chores for me as I was saying goodbye. Then we had the funeral and it was all a blur. I went home that night after days of tears and just pure exhaustion from grief. Despite the fatigue I couldn't sleep. My tear ducts and throat were worn out and had nothing left. Just that wrenching ache of sadness in my gut churning like a washing machine that they don't make any medicine for. It was probably about 1am when I heard MAMA meowing at the door to my Mom's room. Then saw her little bowling ball silhouette at the entrance to mine. She had loafed her way up the stairs for probably the first time in 7 years and half her weight ago. She locked eyes with me and stopped meowing, just struggled up to my bed and curled around my arm on my pillow after giving me a little nose boop. Mom hadn't been home in about a month, I hadn't been home in over a week, and it's like she knew my mom was gone. There's a a cruel isolation to grief at the loss of a parent. If it's anything like my loss you see a ton of people all day but there's a figurative distance between you and your friends and family and you feel like you're on an island thanking people on a passing ship for being there. When MAMA made her way up the stairs to comfort me it was the first time I didn't feel alone all day on a day I was surrounded by hundreds of people. I bellowed dry sorrow into her fur. The tearless echoey sounds you make when you scream at a concert all day. Normally she would have bolted away at the littlest thing, but she stayed right there until the first lights of morning. I decided I'd take MAMA home with me to my apartment after that. She lived another 11 years! I said goodbye to her a few years ago now. She never climbed another set of stairs in her wonderful kitty life. She continued to be mean to mostly everyone but me and never sat in anyone else's lap. She was truly my cat. RIP MAMA! You were the best furry friend in history.

#9

Image source: Cerulean_Zen, freepik My cat gets zoomies at night and likes to pounce around on the bed, even when I'm under the covers. So sometimes she'll hop all over me but not really acknowledge my presence. Well, one week I was in bed recovering from hip surgery. My cat was doing her usual thing, but this time as she was zooming past, one of her paws grazed my hip. She then stopped, turned back around and started making biscuits where my surgery incision was. After 5 minutes of that she went about her day. That's not the end though. The NEXT day she hopped on the bed, sat on top of me and proceeded to knead my hip again, exactly where the doctor had made the incision. I can't tell if it was sympathy or if she was sending healing vibes. But now I know shes willing to help if she thinks something's wrong. Cats definitely don't get enough credit.

#10

Image source: did_you_aye, EyeEm / freepik Was in my baby’s bedroom with baby and dog. Realised it had been a while since I’d let the dog out. So I (securely) left the baby playing for a sec to nip downstairs with the dog, who usually trots after me. I reach the back door and realise the dog isn’t following. She’d stopped at the top of the stairs. Would. Not. Budge. Just sat there glaring at me like, “ummmm… you forgot the baby ?”

#11

Image source: rhinestonecowf-ckboi, freepik There was a mule at a barn I worked at that figured out how to open gates and latches, and would break into the feed storage at night. He didn't like getting in trouble for it, so he started letting OTHER horses out. SOB would then eat his fill, then relock himself back in his own paddock by morning, leaving the other horses to take the fall. Also he stole and chugged long neck beers if you left them unattended around him. Pour one out for Moose.

#12

Image source: roonilwonwonweasly, EyeEm / freepik My cat coughs and makes herself hyperventilate when she feels she is not getting enough attention. Her cough is so human like it is freaky. She had a cold once which included coughing and hyperventilating and got extra special treatment from everyone including extra snacks for being a good girl at the vet and when taking her meds. We spent over $1000 on vet visits which included X-rays and other tests and were considering getting a second opinion when all the results came in. Everything came back clear and the vet declared she's just an attention seeking fatty who likes extra snacks and pets. We also had a cat who played fetch and one who learned to open doors and turn on faucets.

#13

Not my dog - a lost dog I found in the middle of the road in the forest. The dog was standing on the road, which was dangerous. He seemed well kept. I opened the car door and asked "hey boy, what are you doing here?" He perked up, came and jumped right in my car. He was very friendly and I was wondering what to do with him. I decided to start driving to the direction he was looking at when we found him. Hoping to run into his owner. I was worried he was dumped, but it was worth a shot. We came to crossroads and the dog became very excited, looking at the road on our right. We turned there. A few more times we came to a fork in the road and asked him "where is home, boy". He'd pick a direction and stare, we'd drive in that direction. Eventually we came to a clearing with a small farmhouse, I went to talk to the man there if he is missing a small ginger dog. And he was! I opened the car door and the dog jumped out and went straight to the house. Image source: Exciting_Gear_7035

#14

Image source: tauntonlake, westsib / freepik My husky mix watches the roads intently, whenever we drive somewhere out of town. If I take a different road to get back home, and pass by the turn-off to go on the usual road ... his head WHIPS around at me, from staring at the window, and stares, as if to say, "HEY YOU MISSED THE TURN BACK THERE !" cracks me up every time. I believe if I drove him 10 miles out of town, and dropped him off (I NEVER WOULD), but if I did - he would have no problem following all of the roads straight back to our house, from memory. He's got a road map in his head, back to our house.

#15

Image source: zerbey, Wavebreak Media / freepik When my kids were little they went over to a friend's house a few blocks over. The dog wanted to go too and looked forlornly out of the window as they left. A few minutes later he asked to go outside for the bathroom. When he never came back to the door we went to investigate and found a suspicious new hole under the fence. After a brief search we found the dog patiently sitting in their friend's driveway. He'd followed their scent all the way to a house he'd never been anywhere near before.

#16

Image source: AdmirablePen437, EyeEm / freepik So we've got an elevator inside our home since it's rather hard for my grandparents to use the stairs, but I just found out that my dog knows how to use it too after watching us a few times ? He's figured out which buttons take him to which floors too haha.

#17

Image source: ohKilo13, ArthurHidden / freepik Our dog has learned my husband’s forgetfulness. He has a tendency to say “wanna go out?” And then when he gets up to grab the harness get sidetracked with something else. The dog apparently got sick of this and wont move from her spot until she hears him grab the harness and then she trots over.

#18

I had a Budgie (parakeet) that loved The Phantom of the Opera. I had the full recording, which is quite long. Whenever I put it on, I would have to play the entire thing, in order, no skipping. I tried turning it off before the end, but he'd start flapping his wings violently and screaming at me. I tried skipping a song here and there, starting in the middle, playing only one song - no go. He would completely crash out if he didn't get to hear the whole thing from beginning to end. If any of the music came on during a television show or a commercial, he would demand I put on the full recording and give me no peace until I did. He also loved E. Power Biggs (specifically) playing the Bach fugues on the organ. His other favorite was the 5th Suite for solo cello. He loved to sing, but he did not mimic - he did his own thing along with the recordings. It was wild. Image source: becausefrog

#19

Image source: ratfancier, akiromaru / freepik I had a solid plastic pet cage that opened with a sliding horizontal metal grid on top. Over the years this cage had held various animals for various periods of time, including mice and guinea pigs, with no problems. When one of my new rats turned out to have been sold to me pregnant, it became a nursery cage. At about 5 weeks old, I separated the babies by gender, and put mum and the baby girls in the main cage with the other girls while the six baby boys stayed in the nursery cage until they went to their new homes. These tiny, fluffy baby rats, that had only had their eyes open for about three weeks, worked out that if all of them hung from the grid by their front paws, and swung back and forth in synchrony, they could eventually use their combined weight to nudge the sliding grid along, just far enough to stick a nose through at one end, and escape as a group. Best thing is, they were smart enough to escape, but also smart enough to know where their food and drink came from. So, rather than finding an empty cage and having to search for half a dozen tiny escaped rats, I instead discovered several baby rats just chilling out on top of the cage, greeting me and asking for treats. (They could easily get down from there whenever they wanted, either back into the cage or down into the rest of the room). Later on, they demonstrated for me exactly how the escape had been achieved, otherwise I don't think I'd have ever worked it out myself. I am less intelligent than half a dozen baby rodents. Another time, some of my rats staged a breakout, booted up my desktop PC, got into the BIOS, and messed about with a load of the settings. I still don't know if I ever got them all back how they should be.

#20

I have a labradork named Aurora. She is my dog and I am her person. If my husband gives a command, she looks at him like "you are not the boss of me". She won't do it until I tell her to. I just had hip surgery, I'm supposed to stay off my feet as much as possible and have to use a walker to get around, and can't really take care of her. When I got home, she asked me to go outside. Without really thinking about it, I said "go ask daddy" She went and asked daddy. I was dumbfounded. A few years ago, I had a Golden retriever who was always last in line for the brain cell. He actually peed in his own water dish. We called him Walter the Wonder Dog. I was having one of those days where every single thing that could go wrong, went wrong. I sat down and just started to cry. Walter the Wonder Dog kept trying to put his ball in my mouth. Because ball is life, right? Image source: residentprincess58

#21

Image source: EeefDoesArt, freepik My dog loves car rides and loves driving around our suburb with his head out the window. He realised that if he bolted out the door, I would always come fetch him in the car. The little rascal found out the number of blocks he had to run down to guarantee a car ride. Now, every time I fetch him, he waits 4 blocks down the street and will just sit there with a smug look on his face.

#22

Image source: starmadeshadows, freepik Our cats are incredibly emotionally smart and aware. They always seem to know when someone's in distress, and they're always really sweet about it. Also, I swear two of them understand English. If you try and pick up our Balinese out of nowhere, she'll dig her claws into whatever she's standing on. You have to ask her if she wants uppies or a ride before she'll let you pick her up. She absolutely loves being held, she just needs communication ;_; Also-also, our little old lady who loves loafing on people has figured out she can't lie on my tummy, I have a big cyst so the whole area is pretty sensitive. She makes sure to loaf on my hip instead.

#23

Image source: Emotional-Cat-5396, freepik I heard a loud noise from the back of my house and went to check, thinking about raccoon got in the laundry room again. My cat started aggressively herding me the other way, turns out my son had fallen out of bed and hurt himself, and was crying pretty much silently. Kitty got lots of treats that night.

#24

The other day, my German Shepherd reminded me to give him his monthly flea/tick treatment chew when I was a few days late for the first time ever. It's a pill he only gets once a month. He gets up, leads me to the shelf where I keep it, and nudges his head toward the box. Then he sits there smiling and drooling, patiently waiting for me to figure it out. I knew dogs had an internal clock, but I didn't know it went *that* hard. Another example was a couple years ago, when we'd only recently adopted him and he got giardia. I'd been taking him out to the yard regularly to go to the bathroom so he didn't have an accident (he'd already had one on the carpet and I had to replace it). One time, he just wanted to go out and play but I wasn't in the mood. So he goes to the same rug I'd just replaced, and he started squatting like he was gonna go to the bathroom. I said "Noooo!" and then I ran with him to the backyard. He then proceeded to *not* go to the bathroom and just run and play outside for 30 mins. . Image source: Miss-Tiq

#25

Image source: Star_Shine32, camomileleyla / freepik Our cat alerts us to high blood pressure. She'll try and get my daughter to sit down/slow down and every time I notice it I ask my daughter if she's feeling dizzy. Also can't raise my voice to talk in the other room or get stressed out around the cat cause She'll start acting panicked and get me to calm down. Daughter has dysautonomia and the cat noticed something was up even before the diagnosis.