cats

Smart or stupid is irrelevant. What matters is how much it loves you back. Assuming all else is equal, smarter is better, but I'd rather have a lovable moron than an evil genius.

My cat is on the honor roll

All my cats are smart and im proud of them

I have a smart cat who’s not in any way evil. She is, however, very opinionated and she wants things to be just so. If they’re not, she experiences varying levels of distress and will seek to correct them herself in whatever manner she sees fit.

Most of the time, this is a great thing, because I want her to be happy and to give her as much say over her environment as possible, plus it’s good to learn what she likes. Sometimes it’s neutral, like how she tries to bury any food items not currently being held by us, which can be funny or annoying depending on the circumstances. Sometimes it’s bothersome, like her unending and mostly successful quest for all doors in my house to be open at all times.

It can also be simultaneously good and bad, but even so it’s a net positive. She once knocked a glass bottle of lube onto my tiled bathroom floor in the middle of the night (she’s not a big one to knock things over unless she’s trying to communicate with me and she knows how to wake me up if she really wants, so I’m pretty sure it was accidental), then pulled the shag bathmat over the broken glass to cover it up. I was so glad she protected herself from the glass, but cleaning silicone lubricant and broken glass out of a shag rug is basically impossible.

It is striking sometimes what she can actually understand, as someone who grew up with labradors, though. My old housemate used to take her exploring in the basement and she learned the visual and practical differences between an opened and a closed padlock. I don’t know if that’s actually as wild as it seemed, but I was very surprised to see her ignore all of the locked doors and sit waiting patiently only in front of doors that were closed, with unlocked padlocks through the bolts. They were all effectively equally locked to her, but I think that’s where the brunt of her intelligence comes through- she can gauge how to communicate very well with people in general and my husband and me specifically. She also knows what types of things we can change (generally- she seems to think I control thunder and gets very annoyed that I don’t just stop it), so she’s got a good grasp on how to affect the things in her environment either herself or through us.

I think she has the potential to be a mean cat, but I try to listen to what she wants and do as much of it as makes sense (I didn't let her into my neighbors’ unlocked units, for example, and I had a conversation with my housemate about showing her things she can’t explore), which she seems to notice. I think if I ignored her wants and needs, she’d lash out a lot more.

For example, when I play rough with her, I stop when she makes a small specific sound or when she puts her paw without claws or her teeth on my hand without any pressure. My husband plays rougher with her and she makes much more significant noises. At first, he kept playing past the noises and she brought the claws out. If he played past the claws, she’d gently bite him (still in warning). I can absolutely imagine that if I were to generally ignore her cues, she’d gradually ramp up her aggression level.

I suspect part of what makes living with her so easy is that she’s barely food motivated. She’ll come running if she hears the treat bag, but she doesn’t want to eat the whole bag at once. I can free feed her without her gaining weight or the food going stale, and with the exception of a non gustatory affinity for carrots (she just thinks they’re neat), she doesn’t bother me for food at all. She did change a little bit when I moved in with my husband, because I’m a vegan and he’s a butcher. She learned that human food can be appetizing and now she’s a lot more interested and very occasionally persistent about smelling/tasting his food, but she still leaves mine alone.

I've only ever had one cat and she is definitely a Smart cat and I would argue a Good one.

It's been pretty easy training her to stay off electronics/furniture, most morning wellness checks happen after the alarm and even takes medicine like a champ.

I don't have any real sort of baseline but I feel my cat understands a lot of the intent behind my words and often acts accordingly, more than most animals and many small children with whom I've worked.

I get cat because I love cat and have the capacity to take care of cat, doesn't matter whether cat is smart or stupid. So if anything I'd rather choose one who will be happy to have me as their human, which can really happen or not happen with both.

I think the app ecosystem of Smart Cats is good enough to make up for the loss in simplicity from Stupid Cats