Extreme perception and animal intelligence

DRAFT 1 – AGRW2 / ALISSON CONTRERAS

“Extreme perception and animal intelligence”

Perception, Smell things. These two-words come to mind when we talk about animals. Specially, Forensic dogs can smell drugs and that makes them as an X-ray machine. The simple fact that they can help people thanks to a skill that they themselves develop makes them an intelligent animal. In “Extreme perception and animal intelligence”, authors Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson states animals can show intelligence as in the case of Seizure alert dogs and Clever Hans Story.

Seizure alert dogs which are responsible for helping people when they need it thanks to their excellent perception abilities. These types of dogs develop an extreme perception which can perceiving signs and act before the seizure starts. But must dogs only bring to the person their medicine or even lie on top of the person to help, which are called Seizure response dogs. On the other hand, New York time published about a woman who had a dog which can predict her seizure, and it was weird, because it is more common for a dog to help during the seizure than to predict it. Apparently, the dog was trained as a Seizure response dog, but he development of a very special intelligence.

Clever Hans was a famous german horse which could solve math problems. It’s a little strange to believe that a horse could count, but it was real, whose owner, Wilhelm von Osten asked things like “What’s five and five?” and the horse responded by making noises on the ground using its hoof.  So, he could answer mathematical problems without help. Because it was very strange that a horse was intelligent, a psychologist named Oskar, decided to investigate about it. He concluded that the horse only sees the cues of the persons. Of course, it was not totally true. Clever Hans was not trained by someone, he trained by himself, he can read a human by sings  and that is the most important thing.

In conclusion, we don´t really know about how they can do it, but it is true that they show intelligence in different cases. Both developed a superior intelligence for themselves, guiding through stimuli and responding to it. Undoubtedly, the intelligence of these 2 animals is very high. No other animal could develop and ability capable of predicting an event such as a seizure or count and solve math problems.  

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