Smart Animals

Rats - a highly intelligent yet much-maligned animal in Western cultures. Widely used in research, the lab rat has been known to find shortcuts, loopholes and escape routes in the laboratoryexperiments designed by the top scientific minds of our time. In Chinese culture, the rat is revered for its cunning and resourcefulness. And for good reason - the rat has successfully colonized everycontinent on Earth except for Antarctica. And if history is any indication, they'll be there too soon enough.

Chimpanzee - The impressive intellectual abilities of this animal have long fascinated humans.They can make and use tools, hunt collectively, and are capable of advanced problem-solving. They are also able to learn sign language to communicate with humans and can remember the name sign forindividuals they have not seen for several years. But perhaps the most amazing feature of the chimpanzee is its ability to use symbols for objects and combine the symbols in a sequence to convey acomplex idea. Such intellectual gifts are probably central to maintaining this animal's complex social groups, where they form strong bonds and observe elaborate hierarchical structure.

The BorderCollie is widely considered the smartest dog breed in the world.  They usually spend their time sheep herding and handling many forms of livestock, but also make a great pet.  With physical exercise andvarious forms of mental stimulation these dogs are the quickest to learn.  The breed originated on the Scottish, Welsh, and English border and the dogs made an instant impact on the farming industry. It has been determined that in certain areas of the Australian Outback a trained collie will do five times the amount of work that a human could manage.  The Border Collie dominates dog sports aboveall other breeds.  They excel at high jump, utility courses, fly-ball, and can even take first place in dog dancing competitions.  They have an amazing sense of smell and are widely regarded as great...