Pet intelligence wank
The Guardian: Cats outsmarted in psychologist's test.

You can imagine how well this goes with the readers. Besides the predictable flood of pet owner butthurt and anecdotes of clever / stupid cats / dogs / mice / owls, there are plenty of genuinely funny comments as well as a side wank on the validity of test methods and statistics, obligatory calls to talk about world hunger instead or discuss the intelligence of various nationalities, and, naturally, Hitler and his pets make a bonus appearance. I think one could play classical wank bingo in here, but some of the stories make it all worthwhile.

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A rambling cat tale with something of a point and also a bald eagle.

notarose
2009-06-18 08:13 pm UTC (link)

I know for sure that cats aren't so great at estimating sizes over distances, if that's any measure of anything.

The first time our late cat Elvira was allowed outside post-adoption (sometimes barn cat mommas forget how to count and you get to adopt the kittens!), she charged the fenceline, convinced she was going to eat some tasty cow meats.

Luckily, though fierce beyond reason*, she saw the mistake in the end.

(I've seen a bald eagle make the same mistake with emus. Ride a thermal over to the emu farm, get into attack position and then notice halfway down that "Oh! They're bigger than me!" Old Banana Nose was not the brighest bird in the tree.)

*She and her late brother Jack Pumpkinhead weren't fed for about a day after their mother forgot to count. When we found them, we set to bottle-feeding. Jack stayed just awake enough to eat and snuggled in to keep warm. Elvira went nutso, scratching and biting and most of the time forgetting that the bottle was full of food.

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