Tool Wielding Critters

[talon]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35190473/ns/technology_and_science-science/

This article concentrated on wild animals using tools, but we shouldn't discount the effect humans on the tool using abilities of the animals we keep among us.

My son's dog, an Irish Wolfhound/Beagle cross, uses a bent spoon to scoop the meat out of turtles he catches and eats in our yard. No one taught him to do this, he just watched us using spoons to scoop food out of things and stole a spoon. He keeps that spoon in his doghouse and brings it out when he needs it.

Service animals are taught to use a huge variety of tools but I don't think that they could learn to use them if they didn't already have the innate tool-using ability inside of them. Mobility dogs and animals are the greatest tool-wielders, followed by the seeing eye animals, but even the hearing ear dogs learn to use some tools.

Itzl, for example, knows how to turn off and on alarms (in his reach, of course) and answer telephones (he's not so good with cell phones, those buttons just aren't made for tooth and claw). He also, because he's small, knows how to pull or push stools to chairs and sofas and beds so he can get up on them, and how to open drawers so he can get up on counters and dressers to fetch things. He can open my purse, laptop bag, and most suitcases. He can open his dresser drawers to pull out his sweaters (and mostly put them on himself). He pulls pieces of carpet or paper over puddles so he doesn't have to get his feet wet. He can open screwtop containers. If he wasn't trained and used as a hearing ear dog, he could be a service dog for other needs with only his small size limiting him.

And his size is a handicap in his abilities. At 4 pounds, there's not a lot he can physically do. I've made adaptations for him so he's much more independenet inside my home (ramps, levers, etc.) and he's trained the cats to do things for him.

It's that last that's significant, I think. Not only does he learn to use tools, he can teach other animals, other species of animals, to use tools. He speaks fluent Cat and Small Dog and People.

For a dog with a brain the size of a walnut to be so smart makes me wonder why people, with much larger brains, aren't smarter.