Intelligence

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Tue Jan 01, 2002 9:06 am


I´ve often wondered how you would decide one or more of your guinea pigs were smarter than the others. It is a tough call, because I think personality traits and applying human judgments can influence who we would pick.

Snowflake is my top candidate for smart pig but I don´t know if the reasons I chose her are legit. She is very cautious, almost to a fault -- sometimes when I offer her something, she will edge over with caution approaching paranoia before she grabs it from my fingers. And she knows perfectly well I am harmless. Other times she just comes over and gets it.
She is the first one to initiate a call for food. Just decides it is time and squeaks her distinctive squeaks.
I hold each of them at night and give them something to eat (a piece of green pepper lately -- they are most tolerant of me if I do). She looks into my eyes, perhaps to keep track of my movements. When she is done, she does not immediately get upset. But waits a moment or more, tugs gently and suggestively on my clothing, what I would think of as testing the waters, seeing if I am smart enough to catch on to the fact that she wants to get down. She has an inordinate fear of heights and is the only pig that cannot be placidly put on the floor but must make a production of it, jumping out of my hands, standing for a moment, and sauntering casually off as though she had finally gotten rid of me and put me in my place. She is also top pig. And occasionally has PMS.

Nina (the notorious tube piggy) tolerates being pet while eating grass or pellets, eats her green pepper while I hold her and tugs furiously when she is done, demanding to be put down. She is wary of being picked up and whimpers uncontrollably at first, as though these are her last moments on earth. She will quiet down when I am feeding her and she realizes she will at least get one last meal.

Kitten is the easiest pig to pick up. She is lovely to hold, stick your nose in her fur, but she doesn´t look me in the eyes and I think purposely turns away from me after she is done with her green pepper, as though I wasn´t there. She has never figured out how to ask me to get down -- no tugging, just fidgeting for her. I find it almost contradictory that I can pick her up easily but she doesn´t relate to me -- I take her for what she is and still enjoy her tremendously.

So, what characteristics would you think a smart pig would have? Are they completely separate from personality characteristics?

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Tue Jan 01, 2002 9:15 am


Some comments from an earlier board:
INTELLIGENCE

I´ve often wondered how you would decide one or more of your guinea pigs were smarter than the others. It is a tough call, because I think personality traits and applying human judgments can influence who we would pick.

Snowflake is my top candidate for smart pig but I don´t know if the reasons I chose her are legit. She is very cautious, almost to a fault -- sometimes when I offer her something, she will edge over with caution approaching paranoia before she grabs it from my fingers. And she knows perfectly well I am harmless. Other times she just comes over and gets it.
She is the first one to initiate a call for food. Just decides it is time and squeaks her distinctive squeaks.
I hold each of them at night and give them something to eat (a piece of green pepper lately -- they are most tolerant of me if I do). She looks into my eyes, perhaps to keep track of my movements. When she is done, she does not immediately get upset. But waits a moment or more, tugs gently and suggestively on my clothing, what I would think of as testing the waters, seeing if I am smart enough to catch on to the fact that she wants to get down. She has an inordinate fear of heights and is the only pig that cannot be placidly put on the floor but must make a production of it, jumping out of my hands, standing for a moment, and sauntering casually off as though she had finally gotten rid of me and put me in my place. She is also top pig. And occasionally has PMS.

Nina (the notorious tube piggy) tolerates being pet while eating grass or pellets, eats her green pepper while I hold her and tugs furiously when she is done, demanding to be put down. She is wary of being picked up and whimpers uncontrollably at first, as though these are her last moments on earth. She will quiet down when I am feeding her and she realizes she will at least get one last meal.

Kitten is the easiest pig to pick up. She is lovely to hold, stick your nose in her fur, but she doesn´t look me in the eyes and I think purposely turns away from me after she is done with her green pepper, as though I wasn´t there. She has never figured out how to ask me to get down -- no tugging, just fidgeting for her. I find it almost contradictory that I can pick her up easily but she doesn´t relate to me -- I take her for what she is and still enjoy her tremendously.

So, what characteristics would you think a smart pig would have? Are they completely separate from personality characteristics?

Alfie I think my Carrie is the smartest in terms of survival. She´s certainly the most brazen, and she seems to be the only one to have equated my presence with getting food. When I approach the cage the other two still run to the corner (Danger, Will Robinson!) but Carrie - aka "T-Rex" - runs towards me and wheeks her little heart out. And when my mother pig-sat, she also made the human-food connection within a day.

Carrie´s also the biggest by far but I don´t know how the causal links go - whether she´s biggest because she´s smart enough to get to the food first (she seems to have a better sense of smell), or whether she gets to the food first because she´s the biggest. Either way, I sometimes take her out so that the other two have a chance to get the pick of the veges.

So Carrie´s smartest in terms of survival of the fittest, but Alfie´s "smartest" in the way she relates to humans, and Lucy´s kind of smart in a defensive sense - she seems to know the best places to hide. Whether that´s a reflection on me I don´t know...

Ciaytee I think intelligence might be gauged by how good the pig is at figuring out how to make his world conform to his personality. Al is a complete loner, but he is terrible at getting what he wants. He doesn´t like to be held, but can´t figure out the cues that pigs typically use when they want to be let go, i.e. the clothes nipping, peeing, etc. He´s a total wimp, but it doesn´t occur to him to get away from a pig that´s harassing him. Al, I fear, is a complete and total dolt.

St.John is of average intelligence, I think. He´s pretty adequate at letting me know what he wants, but he seems unable to grasp the concept of gravity, as he keeps trying to jump from my arms into the cage, even though several times this has resulted in a dramatic fall and a whack on the head.

It´s hard to tell how smart Cy is because he is King Snugglebutt and rarely ever puts up a fuss about anything. Everything seems to make him happy, and none of the other pigs harass him. So either he´s got the mental capacity of an infant and all the other pigs know it, or he´s very intelligent and knows how to make his world a utopia.

Beau is a genius. If one thing isn´t working to get him what he wants, he thinks things over and experiments until he he finds something that does work. He´s not big on being held, but he does enjoy a certain amount of snuggling. Once he´s had his fill, though, he starts on his cues to put him down. He´ll begin with the clothes nipping. If that doesn´t work, he´ll pee on me. But I´m also smart and learned to hold him with a thick towel on my lap. To which Beau will pee on the towel until it is soaking wet. And if I still won´t put him back, he´ll find a way to pee directly on me by discreetly shifting the towel around.

I´m fairly certain Beau is the reincarnation of the guy who wrote The Art of War. Sun Tsu, I think.

Lynx Oh, and if I respond to requests for food by shrieking "Treat!!!" in an ascending voice, they get excited and go to the middle of the room to wait for my return with food.

So it seems so far food and owner manipulation and just plain crabbiness are interpreted as intelligence.

Might be interesting to go to a psych department and find out what behavioral experiments are done with pigs -- and what behaviors they feel the most intelligent pigs exhibit. I´m sure not all pigs are willing to cooperate or catch on.

toomanypigs The majority of mine seem to act as sheep. For instance, if I type pretty fast on the k/board, Simba seems to think it is a carrot being chopped, and wheeks accordingly. Likewise, she hears the bead curtain rattle -ergo- grass.

Then a quick game of Chinese Whispers seems to evolve, because they all set off squealing then, bar one.

Squeak doesn´t fall for it. Whether this is intelligence, ie:she hasn´t seen me go to the fridge, or the fact that she´s been here six years, knows the routine and KNOWS it´s not carrot time, I don´t know.

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Tue Jan 01, 2002 9:15 am


Lou Brownpig is very interested in people - so everyone likes him as they think theres ´more about him´ but I don´t know if he´s that bright. He knows how to ask to be put down and when its feeding time but that´s about it. He´s snuggly too, loves to be held, just loves it.

Humph hates being picked up, quite likes the occasional cuddle but I do think he´s pretty bright. He´ll show up when I call him, he knows I have sultanas [ he has a very sweet tooth] and begs for them periodically without being prompted. As I sit in my chair watching telly he wanders over and reaches up my legs or stands on his feet.

Both of them seem to be able to instantly tell the difference between food offered purely for treats and food offered as an ambush trap.

RavenShade What Max didn´t have in smarts he made up by simply bashing his way through life. He was friendly and attentive and talkative. But he had a bad habit of finding trouble. Like getting under refrigerators. He got under a small fridge in an apartment and later found out that if he got behind the big fridge, we couldn´t get him very easily. So he would make a mad dash for the big fridge when floor time was up. He also taught Steve to throw his dish around. I´d classify him as "street smart".

Steve is a thinker. I can almost see the wheels turning. He counts. He knows that the SECOND alarm is the one I wake up to. When I fill his bottle, I find him waiting for it, nose pointed at the bar it usually pokes through. When I was cleaning cages, he escaped and dashed into the hallway where Julius´ cage is (Jules was in the bathtub), he started poking around, trying to find the door he was sure was on the cage (there isn´t, It´s made of cubes). I let him go at it for a minute because it was just fascinating to watch how methodical he was. He ran into the bathroom to see if he could get behind it (there´s a wall there). He´s known pretty much from Day One there´s another pig. I think he´s smart.

Julius is too new to guess. He does NOT like his meds and will close his eyes tight when I take him in the bathroom. If his veggie selection is not to his liking, he will make sure I know. But it´s hard to tell if it´s Max-smart or Steve-smart.

Lynx Close his eyes tight? That´s amazing. Never had a pig do more than look kinda sleepy, squint their eyes a bit. Don´t know that I´ve ever seen a closed guinea pig eye.

I remember from years back, someone at CG talking about a pig that would grab his food bowl and swipe it systematically back and forth against the bars to get attention and more food -- something like a prisoner would do in jail.

RavenShade I get treated to a closed eye every day b/c Julius does not appreciate the ointment I have to put in them. But our trials will be over on Tuesday. I´m hoping to get the vet´s blessing - finally!

Max (and now Steve) wasn´t quite that bad. I wish I could remember whose pig did that?

ECollins My four pigs are free-range when I´m home.

Maggie is lead pig. She comes furthest into the kitchen when I´m prepping veggies, while the others hang back on the carpet. She´s a no-nonsense pig, and the best snuggler. Reminds me of Cleopatra for some reason. A lady of mystery, but not too much energy.

Lucy is number two pig. She gets upset if I don´t stick to my routine of veg distribution: Romaine on the bottom of the pile, parsley above, apples to the side. God forbid I should delay the parsley; she tromps over to the kitchen to alert me that I´ve clearly forgotten something very important!

Daphne is class president, rally girl, and lead prankster. She is always happy! When I recently returned from a trip (the pigs went with me), and was unpacking the car, Daphne marched right up to the door to make sure we were not leaving again. She also investigated all rooms of the house to see what changed while she was gone. She loves a good romp, and requires many trips around the room before she´s ready for her snuggles.

Daphne is the tragic opera singer. Sadly, she is hated by all the other pigs. Should´ve named her Rudolf. They won´t play with her, let her snuggle, or even lay by them. She shrieks when they come near because they will always head butt her. Daphne will back Lily into a corner from which she can´t reach the food and Lily just waits until it´s over. It´s heartbreaking. She´s not the brightest bulb in the box, but she´s a damned fine snuggler.

All the pigs know that "get in the bed" means, well, get in the bed so I can leave or go to bed.

Alfie Lynx - I believe that was Sean doing the "Jailhouse Rock" act. Very gorgeous story.

sallytslc I think I´d add persistence and curiosity to "manipulation" and whatever the other criterion was. When the pigs are out, I notice that Po almost immediately busies himself trying to find a way out of whatever enclosure he´s in. He hasn´t escaped for a while, but for a long time he was Houdini. I´d think the pigs were happily playing in the playpen-of-the-day, and suddenly this little wild-haired presence would materialize at my side, poking his head into the fridge as I sat contemplating what to make for dinner. And he always made for the kitchen, too, no matter which room he was in for playtime. That hasn´t happened for a while, but he still seems the more inquisitive of the two -- Squeaky just has a "possum in the headlights" persona, and will sit frozen to one spot until food appears or I toss in a toilet paper tube, which he will then run and not quite fetch, like a badly-trained retriever. Po is also the one who has figured out that there´s food on the second level of the cage and that it´s worth it to climb up and get it, and who comes to the side of the cage and stands up to socialize when we go by. He just seems a lot more "on," which seems to go with being edgier and less easygoing. Squeaky will put up with more handling and is generally more patient, but that seems a function of a more passive personality.

So, I really don´t know who´s smarter and who´s -- not so smart. But this is why I really like my difficult piggy, and why I was always drawn to answer those "how do I tame my pig" posts in other forums -- I think the more skittish, sensitive ones are often at least more interesting, if not smarter, and that the behaviors which can seem antisocial are a function of a more curious, seeking sort of personality. Or maybe I´m reading waaaaaaaay too much into my limited little experience here. . .

Lynx Yes, I know what you mean. It is that more cautious and thoughtful aspect combined with more requests for food that make Snowflake seem more intelligent. And Kitten´s apparent lack of fear that makes her seem less bright -- however she is very very good at grabbing food out of the other pigs mouths!

User avatar
RavenShade
Thanks for the Memories

Post   » Tue Jan 15, 2002 2:18 pm


I´ve decided that Julius is Steve-smart. The other day he was working out how to get off the bed onto the floor. I had a small box at the end of the bed and he got as far as the box, but was too scared to slide (no grip on the box) to the floor. He tried a few times before getting back on the bed and trying a new route. You could almost see the wheels turning in his little head. I extended playtime to see if he´d solve the puzzle, but had to put them back before he got it. But he´s definately a problem-solver.
Last edited by RavenShade on Tue Jan 15, 2002 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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ricky

Post   » Tue Jan 15, 2002 5:22 pm


Ricky is for certain the most visibly dominant pig: he swaggers, he rumbles, he stinks, plus he´s the only with balls attached. He has a lot of personality, he is persistant, he understands what side his bread is buttered on, he is friendly and pettable like a dog: one could easily determine that he is the most intelligent.

However, after months of ongoing careful scientific study and observations (read, me lying on my belly among their wood shavings telling the pigs in a goofy voice how good and handsome they all are), I have a strong theory that Squeaky is the power behind the throne, and Ricky is a mere figurehead. Squeaky is very quiet, unassuming, a little skittish, very sweet-tempered. Yet Ricky defers to him, Ricky protects him, Ricky also harasses him like crazy but he backs off when Squeaky finally puts his foot down. Squeaky has a very intelligent gleam in his eye and thinks things through before acting. He sits back and considers what you have to offer. He is also the least impressed by treats, and recognizes when they are bribes. He was very scared to be touched when I first got him; he has learned to trust me. And when Cinnamon was first introduced to them, Ricky did all the rumbling but Squeaky had the final say on his acceptance after examining his character.

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Tue Jan 15, 2002 10:44 pm


Well, my pigs don´t "like" being picked up in the evening and held. I usually grab Kitten first because she is so easy to scoop up. And shortly afterward, I may see the other two pigs trooping off to the more distant resort area. I can hear them saying, "Move it out -- she´s gonna be comin´ for us -- come on, get movin´ ". I think most pigs have a strong elusivity gene. At least mine do.

Evangeline

Post   » Tue Jan 15, 2002 11:04 pm


And I don´t blame them one bit!

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Jill

Post   » Thu Jan 17, 2002 9:15 am


Mine are the same way, Lynx. They are all kinds of friendly when I come around with veggies, but as soon as she sees a shadow that sly Sissy is gone in a flash. Sometimes I can surprise Piggie and just scoop her up, but she starts chewing my shirt right off the bat. Ingrates. Well, cute ingrates.

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Stacy
Supporter in '11

Post   » Thu Jan 17, 2002 10:36 am


My pig actually likes to be held. When I get home from work, he will wheek and wheek until I come over and pick him up. He also likes to sit on my lap and sleep. I think he watches my cat sleeping on my lap, and says, "Hey, what about me? I want to sit on your lap too!" So, sometimes I have both a cat and a guinea pig sleeping on my lap! The other day he was running around on the floor while I was cleaning his cage. Well, I guess he got tired of playing because he came over, jumped onto my lap, and stretched out to take a nap! Maybe he thinks he is a cat?

Alibabble

Post   » Thu Jan 17, 2002 7:16 pm


Gavin is definitely the smarter pig. He is fully capable of making it very clear what he wants; if the food isn´t too his satisfaction he will dump the food dish and turn it upside down. If the hay is in the wrong place he simply spreads it out to the corner he wants it in.

I had to briefly separate Gavin and Sweetheart for the first two days back after Christmas (they seemed to think that the cage was new because it was in a different location, and thus they must fight and establish dominance again). It was late at night when I set up the cube divider and I didn´t do the best job of securing it. Gavin managed to push out the bottom of his hay rack (it´s a cube attached with zap straps to the side of the cage), tunnel through the hay, move to the side of the cube divider and push that out of his way, then tunnel through Sweetheart´s hay rack and get over to Sweetheart´s side of the cage.

Sweetheart is a really cuddly pig, but he is the exact opposite of intelligent. He´s the kind of pig that doesn´t protest anything, is continually surprised when I´m the one who picks him up, and can´t figure out how to get a carrot into his pigloo. He will spend hours with his body in the pigloo and the carrot caught crosswise at the doorway. He´ll bang the carrot around and never quite manage to discover that if he turns it sideways it will fit inside with him! Eventually he gives up and eats it outside of his pigloo, or I take pity on him and turn the carrot sideways for him.

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Jan 17, 2002 9:41 pm


Stacy, you are really lucky. Sounds like a neat pig. I do think each pig has its own charms but it is neat to have one who actually wants to be held. And Gavin must be a real character.

I am still amazed when Nina unfailingly whimpers when I pick her up. I haven´t eaten her yet and I don´t really plan to.

J-LPigcard

Post   » Thu Mar 28, 2002 8:51 pm


Miss MoneyPenny would let me know when she wanted to be held by standing up with her front paws on the side of the cage. She would wait for me to place my hands underneath her to pick her up. Then a purr would come, and then after a minute or two, when I was holding her, she would specify what specific food item I was supposed to get her. She would pull my shirt to get my attention, and then I would present my index finger to her for her to place her order. A series of licks indicated water, while a firm chew followed by soft mouthings indicated cucumber. A firm chew with lots of licking afterward would be for a clementine segment. A series of medium chews indicated lettuce. Hard chews were for pellets. She would also pull my finger up and over her head when she wanted me to pet her. I would know if I got it right because she would purr when I did, and not when I didn´t. She was the one who figured out this system. I never had to teach her.

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