15+ Stories That Prove Pets Are Way Smarter Than We Think

Pets are a never-ending source of positivity. And they can surprise us not only with their devotion and love, but also with their intelligence. Sometimes they even seem smarter than us. In these stories, animals showed wonders of wit, ingenuity, and even cunning.

• Our cat Nikita insisted that I brush her teeth with an electric toothbrush. No matter where in the house she was, if she heard me brushing my teeth, she would run and jump on the bathroom counter and try to dig her brush out of the drawer (I refused to share mine.) I would have to remove my head, put hers on, wet it (no paste), turn it on and brush. Vet was always impressed with her teeth. © Mark Farley / Quora
• Dog comes into the room before bedtime. Looks at me. Me: “Hi, pupster. Do you want to get your toy before you go to sleep? It’s in the living room.” Pup: trots all the way to the living room, gets his toy, comes back and plops down on his bed.
  I knew he could understand a lot of what I say, I’d talk to him like a person — but my roommate had her jaw on the floor. She was like, “He understands English?” I’m like, “I guess so.” © Loading_Username_001 / Reddit
• I was a toddler when this happened, but my mother has told me the story many times. A stray dog (German Shepard) showed up one day, and it was hot, so my mother gave him water, later a little food. He was polite and not aggressive so she kept giving him pity food/water, so he, of course, kept sticking around and after a week he was a regular fixture on our porch just sitting or sleeping there.
  My dad didn’t want to adopt him. About a week or 2 into this dog hanging around, a delivery arrived, and my mother was bringing it inside, holding my younger brother (he was a couple months old). While she was busy and had her hands full, I somehow managed to slip out the front door unnoticed.
  By the time my mother realized I was not in the house, I had toddled most of the way down to the busy street in front of our house. My mother ran around the house calling for me and looking for me. When she got to the front door, she saw me at this point at the curb right at the busy street and screamed.
  Before my mom could react, the stray dog jumped up and ran down to where I was. He gently put his mouth over my arm and pulled me back from the curb and kept me there until my mother got to me. Needless to say, we adopted the dog that day. © Eric Williamson / Quora
• I was walking my dog, it was getting dark. And he got stuck under a bush and stood there. What was he looking for there? I pulled him and called him.
  In the end, I had to pick him up and carry him away. I scolded him on the way, saying how stubborn he was. When we got to the entrance, it suddenly dawned on me. I ran back to that bush, because that’s where my lost keys were.
  I was embarrassed in front of Woody. And I finally realized why he wanted to find them so much. Because when he and I plan to go for a walk, I always say, “Okay, the leash is here. Where are the keys? Woody, we won’t go anywhere until we find the keys!” © Ekaterina Baitzur

• My Samoyed knows he can use his nose to turn off my Xbox and get my attention. He always gets a drink of water before going on a walk. He also knows he can sneak more food off of a platter left too close to the edge of the table, if he slowly takes nibbles when nobody is watching, instead of knocking down the whole tray. © b1223d / Reddit
• My daughter was always angry at our dog Torro for knocking her down when he greeted her after school. But one day I witnessed a scene worthy of an Oscar!
  I was sick and didn’t go to work. And then it’s time for my daughter to come home from school. Torro runs to the door. Suddenly he hears the sound of a key turning in the lock!
  Torro jumps up and runs to the bed. He lies down and shuts his eyes as if he were asleep. My daughter comes in and calls out to him, “Torro, my boy, where are you?” The dog doesn’t react.
  Eva goes over to him and bends down. And at that moment, Torro opens his eyes and stretches sweetly, as if he had been asleep all day, and he has no concern about her coming at all! If I hadn’t seen him worrying and running to the door, I would have believed that he really slept all day and Eva woke him up. © Svetlana Kurilova Grischko
• My dog plays hide and seek with my daughter. I’ll hold his face and talk to him so he doesn’t look while she’s hiding, then I ask him where she is, and he goes running around the house looking for her. He loves this game and will jump at the chance to run around the house and look for her, but he only plays like 5 or so rounds before he gets tired of it for a bit. © Shreyas13 / Reddit
• The dog started limping. Took him to the vet — sprained ligament. They prescribed therapy, said that if he shook his leg on a walk, he should be carried home. But nothing helped.
  When we go for a walk, he’s fine, and when we come back, he’s in our arms. We started to get really worried. Then our neighbor suddenly got 2 puppies. And then a miracle happened!
  Our Chuck, forgetting about his “sick” leg, immediately rushed to play with the kids. He galloped so fast, even stood on his hind legs! And just imagine, he jumped happily home!
  But if he doesn’t meet the puppies, he does it all over again: leg up, trembling and looking at us with universal anguish. “Carry me. Can’t you see, I’m in agony?!” There he is, my faker! We figured out his cunning just recently. © Julia Marty

• One of my pet rats was kinda smart. When they would walk around on my bed, they were able to step onto the windowsill. I used to have blinds in front of my window, and the little cord hung over it down to the ground. At the end of the cord there was this little weight.
  So my pet rat tried to lift the cord upward, but, of course, it kept falling back down because of the little weight. He thought for a minute, and then lifted the cord again, put his front paw on the cord, gripped another part of the cord with his teeth, lifted it upward a little further, put his paw on top of it, etc. He managed to get the rest of the cord and little weight on the windowsill.
  He did that every day after that. I thought that was pretty smart. Also, I used to have 2 rats that could spin around their axis on command. They knew they would get a snack if they did that. So whenever I opened a bag of potato chips (for myself!), they started spinning around like 10 times hoping they would get some. I never give my rats chips, for the record. © Pikachu_91 / Reddit
• We lived in a flat on the second floor. Every evening, our cat would jump on the windowsill at a certain time and stare intensely into the distance. And always, 3–5 minutes later, our car, driven by my husband, would drive into the courtyard. The cat would stare at the car until it reached the car park.
  And the second my husband entered the house, she would jump off the windowsill and run into the corridor. The door would open, my husband would enter the flat, they would “say hello,” and the cat would go to lie down on the sofa with a sense of accomplishment.
  And this repeated day after day! The time of my husband’s arrival could vary, he could come an hour earlier or later. But the cat was always at the window exactly 5 minutes before he arrived! © Munar Usubalı Genç
• My Corgi helps hold open inside doors for my 3-legged dog (named Wobbles) we adopted when he realized Wobbles couldn’t follow him due to the doors shutting behind him. © Flattt / Reddit
• We had a cat for 16 years, a very intelligent creature who understood everything. When he was young, his favorite place was the top of the wardrobe. But as he got older, he couldn’t jump on it anymore.
  Once a neighbor called, we talked about our pets, and I said to her, “Our cat is quite old now, he can no longer jump on the wardrobe.” And the cat wasn’t in the room with me. I enter the room where the wardrobe is, and what do I see?
  The cat sits on the wardrobe and looks at me intently, as if saying, “I am old?! I’m young!” © Lyudmila Agapova

• It was the early ’90s. One day I got stuck in the elevator between the fifth and sixth floors. As usual, the emergency call button didn’t work. “Well,” I thought, “I’m gonna be stuck here for a long time.” Imagine my surprise when my dad came to the rescue.
  It turns out that our sheepdog started whining, barking and asking outside. My parents decided she needed to go to the toilet. My dad got dressed and went out with her, but for some reason the dog started barking at the elevator shaft, where I got stuck. By the way, my parents lived on the twelfth floor!
  Now we have a Swiss mountain dog. It’s an amazing dog! She makes her own “bed” in the doghouse, and if someone changes something there, she immediately removes everything from the doghouse and starts all over again, according to her “taste”! © Svetlana Preobrazhenskaya
• I had a very clever Jack Russell Terrier dog. She could escape from her cage without opening the door when still a tiny puppy. She had me stumped on this one for a while.
  We were visiting my sister-in-law and had gone out to dinner. When we left, the dog was in her crate, the door latched. When we came home, the dog was out of her crate and the door was still closed and latched. Did she shut the door behind her after she got out? Nope.
  What she would do was to climb up in the corner of the crate, and use her head to force the lid of the crate up enough for her to squeeze through. No muss, no fuss, but it baffled the hell out of me until I saw her do it. She also warned us of 2 kitchen fires before they could spread and do any damage. © Adddicus / Reddit
• My cat has this thing about drinking water from a bowl. She would always tip it over, lick it off the floor. We got tired of stepping on a wet floor in socks on daily, so we wedged the water bowl between 2 heavier objects so that she couldn’t tip it over.
  She realized she could get a running start to jump onto a rolling office chair to create enough force to move the bowl enough to spill it onto the floor. I feel like she has a pretty good grasp on simple physics and using tools to get her way.
  This was a couple of years ago, and I did end up getting her a little fountain to drink from! She and her little sister have their own fountain, and we haven’t had any issues since. © born2stab / Reddit
• My hamster used to fix his wheel all by himself. As soon as it stopped spinning, he would immediately look for the breakage.
  Usually it was bits of bedding getting stuck between the spokes. The first thing he’d do was check the axle, although it was always in good working order. Then he would inspect the entire wheel diameter, find the blockage and fix it.

• My grandmother has an incredibly curious and intelligent cat. Every night before she goes to bed, my grandmother makes a round of the flat — checking the gas, locks, lights, and water. And the cat goes with her. The cat looks at the lock, then in the sink, then on the stove, like she’s really checking.
  And if Grandma is watching TV and doesn’t go to check on time, the cat sits on the threshold of the room and starts meowing. One time, Grandma told her, “Well, go check it yourself.” And the cat jumped up and ran. Grandma followed her out of interest, and the cat made a full round, checking the door, the gas and the water. © Olga Rud
• My cat noticed that I would tap my husband on the shoulder if I wanted to get his attention (he uses headphones often). He started mimicking this, and now reaches up and taps us on the arm like a toddler would to get our attention. It’s pretty adorable (and effective!). © acidic_tab / Reddit
• My 2 dogs and I were on a hike and one of my dogs ran ahead while the other stayed back and barked at me, almost as if she was trying to keep me in place. I soon realized there was a bear ahead, the bigger dog was charging at him until the bear ran up a tree while the smaller dog stayed with me and remained between the bear and I. It’s like they had a full safety system in place, and it blew my mind. © Unknown author / Reddit
• When I got my cat, I was in a very toxic and confusing relationship, but wasn’t aware of it at the time. My unstable relationship led me to some very dark and unstable moments. I remember one day I had a panic attack and was too fragile to literally do anything that day. I curled up on my couch like a little girl crying my heart out.
  Too sad to move, I laid there for hours. The entire time, my cat laid on my upper back and didn’t get up until I finally did. He has been my mini shadow ever since. He lays wherever I sit/rest and whenever I get up or walk to another room. © Amelie Ann / Quora

And these pets proved that life won't be the same without them.