My mule, Sabina watches all the gates and if one is left open or unlatched, she knows it and out she goes. She wants the horses to follow her and if they don't, she will go back and get them. If they aren't paying attention, she may have to go back a couple of times, but eventually they catch on and will follow her. My horses didn't know there was a world beyond the front gate until she came along. Still if she doesn't lead them out, they won't go.

All mine have learned to rule the roost!

Well, one of my cats is sitting by my chair meowwing at me because he wants some company. Gotta go!

She knows that I'll spend time in the bathroom in the morning, where the WATER is. If I say, what do you want? And she'll say make her special noise (it's two smushed together "meow-meow", meant to mimic me saying water) , she'll get to drink the tap water. I should record and upload it.

She also knows when I am done getting ready and am going to work. The purring will stop instantly, and then she slinks off to lie by the front door. If I carry her out of the room, she'll even growl at me and jump down. She sure loves it when I get up in the morning and really hates me when I leave.

He knows he can get a lot of human attention fast by yelling, "Parakeet!" at the top of his little lungs. Yes, we know what you are, LOL!

One thing my oh so smart dog didn't learn was you can't catch shadows or reflections. We have some major craters in our yard :(.

Like my kids, sometimes I think my pets are training me.

Dh's cousin has a dog that unzips zippers. We were at a family reunion and the dog (a doxie) got into my dh's aunt's purse by unzipping it. She got really mad, but she had been warned to put the purse up high.

That Grandpa is an easy mark--he'll give up the table food every single time.

If me and my husband start joking around and push or smack (playfully of course!) each other our doxie Winston gets upset and will start whimpering and jumping up on his hind legs to get us to stop. It's so sweet that he tries to stop us from "fighting". We always say aaaww and pick him up and give him hugs and kisses. He also used to run in between our cats if he thought they were fighting or going to fight. They were usually playing but Winston doesn't want any fighting in his house. Our ferrets were his buddies and if a cat was walking too close to them he'd run in between just to make sure they were ok. So he learned to be peace maker on his own :)

Our Snuffy dog knew where Dairy Queen was and would complain bitterly if we drove past without stopping. She also knew where the Ice cream was kept at home. We could hear her whining all over the house as she would take up sitting in front of the freezer waiting for her evening treat.

Snuff also knew when to start watch for her favorite person to come home. For a year, DH was working 200 miles away from home. He arrived home every Friday between 7 and 9pm. After 3 weeks of that pattern, Snuff had it figured out and set up watch for him around 5pm each Friday. No amount of bribing could get her away from her watch at the big bay window where she could se him arrive.

Snuff was also a good gardener. She loved and picked her own cucumbers and peppers and seemed to know when the picking was right. She roamed the garden daily checking each plant and would pass up many immature fruits, settling on the more mature goodies. We knew we were in trouble when she discovered where potatoes came from.

These are great! Please continue.....

Years ago my daughter's horse figured out the "pulse" on electric fencing. He would hear the pulse & know how much time until it would be live again. He would use his nose to lift up the fencing & then walk under it & out to wherever he thought was better. He also taught my horse how to do it! they couldn't leave the property so were in no danger, just thought the grass was greener outside their turnouts.

Holy cow! Some of these are amazing!! And funny! :-)

A friend of mine had a Border Collie that could spell and tell colors. You told her to get you the green soccer ball; she'd bring you the green soccer ball. Tell her to get the yellow tennis ball, you got it...and so on. She got so good, you could spell the color and type of ball. She was super at agility but had favorite obstacles; sometimes when running her through the backyard course, she would hear you tell her tunnel but she didn't want to go there so she'd bark at you and go over the a frame instead.....then go back and follow your command. She was a goof ball but so much fun to play with.

She was obsessed with rocks and the garden hose. You couldn't say either word without her going bonkers!

Haha Aprile - another thing they learned - no humans, free range of countertops. I thought my cats never went on the counters until we got a new stove and would find footprints across the front in the mornings. Stainless steel is very unforgiving.

She is the only one who will jump up there and like I said she takes great care not to be on the counters but I guess to her the sink is fair game lol. They mainly stay in their cat tree or on the back of the couch.

I had a greyhound and a pitbull I called them the odd couple. They greyhound tolerated the pitbull but the pitbull loved the greyhound. They had to share a love seat in the den. Since both were big dogs they each had to curl up to fit on the love seat together. My greyhound knew if he ran to the door real fast and woofed the pit bull would get off the love seat to see what the greyhound was woofing at. Once the pitbull got off the love seat the greyhound would run and jump on the love seat and spread all the way across it so the pitbull couldn't sit there. They poor pitbull fell for the bait and switch every single time!

Our third Westie, Pip, watched television. He objected to close-ups of men with beards and running horses.

We had a small television on a chest in our dining room and another set about a foot above the floor in a bookcase in the family room. If Pip spied a 'danger' on the DR set, he would race into the family room to be able to bark right into its face until it 'went away'. Since the sets were seldom on at the same time, he thought he had scared the danger away.

Pip and Charlie both watched TV. Our other two never did, although Eliot had a brief interest in his own reflection in a full length mirror mounted on a door when he was a pup. Not only did the reflection move when he moved, the whole door moved when he touched it.

Noble (named for the noble fir tree) my labradoodle knows how to open the kitchen door. We have tried to keep him out but to no avail. He never touches anything really... until today that is! He stole the butter off the counter, chewed up a third of it and then brought it to DS. I guess he wanted to share. Shaking head in disgust at smart dogs.

He also entertains himself by throwing a ball down the stairs when we're busy. He has also taught us to go the bottom of the stairs when we're not busy and toss it back up to him. Good human. ;)

We had a fenced acre lot. The 2 cats were not supposed to get out of the house but sometimes they went into the yard. When Sara hadn't come back in for 2 days I jokingly asked Reece "Where is Sara, do you know where she is?" He immediately started walking to the back of the acre that had an old broken evaporative cooler on the ground. It wasn't until we got right up to it that we saw Sara had wedged herself into the fan mechanism. We were able to get her out with a lot of effort. If Reece hadn't led us right up to the spot we wouldn't have found her. What a smart boy he was.

Oh I hope Sara was ok. What a smart boy Reece was.

Yes, Sara was fine. This happened many years ago, they are both gone now.

How to finagle its own way with me.

Colleen ... them Australian cats'r real smart, I hear.

o j

Our cat sits on command. I'm not sure how rare that is.

I created a special ringtone for when Mom calls, It's the first 15 seconds of a song. Apparently the dogs figured this out because when the song comes on the radio they jump up and think it's Mom calling because she likes to Facetime and talk to them.

A show I watched this morning about dogs reminded me of our Daughters
previous dog before the one she has now. Bitsy would sometimes wake Marie in the
middle of the night, seemingly to go outside to potty. But sometimes after
waking her, Bitsy would refuse to go out, but would keep pestering Marie. Marie,
since she was awake anyway would go potty herself and then check her blood
sugar. Then in her 40's, Marie had been diabetic since age ten, and as happens
in long term diabetics she often did not recognize low sugars.

After several of these night time awakenings, it finally dawned on Marie
that every time this happened, her blood sugar was dangerously low. Bitsy was
alerting her! No one taught her this, she somehow just knew.

Good dog, Bitsy! I've heard of training dogs to alert their owners to health problems like variations in BP or blood sugar, but Bitsy evidently figured it out for herself. Don't you wonder HOW they know? Is it an odor?

That's amazing about Bitsy. Like chisue, I've heard of dogs trained to do these types of alerts. I know a child who is a severe diabetic and has an alert dog who sleeps with him. But, I've never heard of a dog that figured this out on it's own. I would imagine it is some type of odor but then how would the dog realize it was an odor to be concerned about? After all, with their sensitive noses, dogs encounter all kind of odors every minute of every day.

Fabulous thread!

My pooches know their toys and they don't play with the other's toys.

my schnauzer, whom I consider brilliant, knows the color red. I thought they were supposed to be color blind.

They seem to know when we're talking about them, so we spell

schnauzer loves chasing squirrels but I think he sees it as playing not defending territory. when DH shoots one, he gets upset. I don't know if he's sad about squirrel or scared he's next. But he fully inderstands something "bad" has happened to the furry rat.

my kitty is not afraid of my dogs and seems to know that if they growl, it is not meant at him.

They are amazing creatures, our pets.

Can't say Caesar's name without him looking to see if we're talking about him. (So can't say Caesar salad, Little Caesar's pizza, Sid Caesar, Cesar Milan or Ceasar Romero.) Also can't say our last peke's name (Sasha) without him thinking it's him. Also can't say boy, dog or animal. "Creature" is working for now but I don't expect it to last.....I think I'll add Canine.

I love all of your stories! Our two have recently learned to open the doors and escape. I woke Saturday morning to the back door open and our furbabies out roaming with no supervision :-)

I will have to tell you about something that our Snuffy dog didn't learn, at least that is what she wanted me to believe. I wrote about her and her love for Ice cream and garden veggies in a previous post. I have told this story before, but some may have not seen it.

Snuffy was diabetic for the last 7 of her 13 years. For about 3 months after she was diagnosed with diabetes, I was the only one available to give her the shot of insulin each morning. She was very good about it. Would back up between my legs when told and stand still while I pulled up the scruff of her neck and administerd the injection there. When I said "ok, all done" she would turn her head and nip my fingers to let me know of her disapproval, before she walked away.

Finally when DH was at home at the right time for shot giving, I instructed
him on how to do it. Snuffy dutifully backed up between his legs, allowed him to
'do the dirty deed' and then she promptly moved ahead the 6 feet to where I stood
watching and nipped MY fingers. There was no way that she was going to 'blame'
that person that was always her favorite.

One day when I was about to feed one of our cats she used her paw to tap the center of her bowl. I'm assuming to say hey dummy it's empty. lol After that I trained her to do it when I ask her if she's hungry. :D

We fed our first Westie from a stand that had two metal bowls, one for water and one for food. It was unforgivable to reverse the order of the dishes! We had to replace these with stonewear for the second Westie. He'd grab a metal dish by its rim when he was finished eating and fling it across the floor. Then he'd send the water dish flying as well. This was our best-behaved, sweetest dog. He just didn't like those dishes!

Our Lady figured out whatever was the current word for W-A-L-K. We had to change the word once or twice a year. Walk, tour, outing. I think excursion took her the longest to get.

For the longest time, she didn't seem to understand windows. She would look out the long windows by the front door, but never out any other window. Once when her friend Hope was staying with us, Hope ran to a window for some reason. You could almost see the light bulb go off over Lady's head as she realized that there were big holes in the walls that you could see through!! 8-)

Another one about Noble. We got a 5 year old rescue dog named Marabelle Victoria Molly, about 2 years ago. Apparently she was neglected and treated very badly by the children in the family. Anyway she has several quirks. One of her most noticeable quirks is that she bolts when a door or gate is left open and leads people on a, scary for us, merry, for her, chase. Well the first time she tried it Noble ran after her. Really he hunted her down. She ran back to us right away. Problem solved. Good Noble. :)

My dog Ryan has learned my habits. If I'm watching TV and I change to a music channel, he knows I'm going on the computer or going outside. If I'm at the computer and he HEARS me remove my glasses (he lies on the floor near me and pretends to be asleep), he's up in an instant and knows it's either TV or outside. If I put my phone in my pocket he's to the door like a rocket, tail furiously wagging. If on the way to the door I grab the car keys, as soon as the door is opened he's out like a shot and sitting beside the car, giving me cow eyes.

My dog has figured out how to be completely annoying.

Without looking at a clock, Tony knows when it is time to eat. He had a bit of a problem when we switched to daily saving time, but he adapted within a few days.

We used to keep the catnip in a container in the bookcase. It wasn't long before Bud knew they were kept there.

Every night like clockwork between 6:15-7:30, he'd rattle the hanging knobs to let us know he wants his catnip.

One of his best tricks was when he rattled the doorknob, and hubby got out of the armchair to get him some. Bud immediately jumped into the chair, settled down and looked at him. He just wanted the chair!

Knock, knock, knock!! Now may I please have some?

So cute!

I am so loving all the dog and cat stories. It is apparent that our animals enrich our lives in many ways.

Here is another story about another Granddog.

My younger daughter had 2 Beagles. While visiting at her house for a
weekend some years ago, I stayed with the Beagles while Daughter went to a
Doctors appointment. The dogs normal supper time is 4:00 she had told me, but
Molly the oldest would try to tell me at about 3:30 that it is time to eat.
Don't fall for her lies and just ignore her till it is 4 o'clock, she
said.

Sure enough about 3:30 Molly appeared in front of me as I was reading in a
comfy chair. She did a little wiggle dance and then went to her empty bowl. I
continued to read without looking up. Then Molly came back and did the wiggle
dance and added 2 fast spinning circles for emphasis and then back to her empty
bowl again. I continued reading. Molly then came back, repeated all the other
moves and next grabbed my pant leg and shook my leg briskly. Now I burst out
laughing. I couldn't ignore her any longer

What I find even more funny about dogs and their meal times is that they go from living in Spain and dining after 10pm to being Floridian seniors, clamoring for the early-bird special at 4pm!

So like people!

Jasdip that's hilarious!

I think I've liked and thanked everyone and if I missed someone I sincerely apologize! This was the 1st and probably the last time I'll thank everyone for their replies!! LOL!

Fun topic, Marcy. Thanks for starting it!

LOL! You're welcome! I've thoroughly enjoyed it. So many smart, funny pets! We're all lucky to have them in our lives, aren't we!

Jasdip Your cat is a stoner LOLOLOL So cute :)

LOL Hareball!

Jasdip, that is funny - when it's happening to some one else. ha I told you about my cat scratching the sink cabinet. I never catch her in the act, just can hear here doing it and it sends me running. Exactly what she wants me to do.