2nd Choice Blog

              Hey guys this is my 3rd blog and my 2nd choice blog. It is about Chaser, a 6 year old border collie, who is the pet of an 82 year old Psychology professor. This dog is a real genius, she has memorized over 1,000 words and a couple of simple sentences. She can sort out from a pile of over 1,000 objects which each one is. If John Pilley, the owner, says bring me the frisbee, she finds it out of the whole pile. To quiz the dog's remarkable memory a PBS host was brought in to sample the dog's memory with a variety of toys. The dog easily passed the quiz getting 9 out of 9 toys right. Finally, the ultimate test of memory was set before Chaser which was bringing a toy that she had never seen before. The host called out "fetch Darwin", somehow Chaser used deductive reasoning skills to find the toy that she had never seen before and brought it to him. This was well documented and showed the world that primates lag behind dogs in social intelligence.                              

             The next interesting topic I found while reading about interesting animals was the Surinam Toad. This toad is remarkably different from most other toads in that it keeps its babies in its back. After mating the male spreads the eggs on the female's back which they sink into and create a honeycomb like structure of eggs. Even more amazing is that the eggs develop into tadpoles while still in the mother's back and emerge as fully grown toads.From that point on the toads leave the mother and live solitary lives. Although the image of a honeycomb of eggs on the back of a toad isn't very appealing and some may even go as far as to calling it disgusting, the Surinam Toad is a remarkable the unique animal in the animal kingdom.
              Both those interesting pieces on animals showed me just how amazing and diverse these animals we think of as lesser beings can be. Chaser blows my mind with all the stuff he can do, if i had a dog like Chaser I would not waste my time with toys but move onto big things like "Steal that child's candy", a remarkable action that would change the world. The Surinam toad is a horrific yet amazing example of how offspring come into this world and the diversity of ways they do come into being. The Surinam toad is amazing and I wish I a couple, but as I said in my previous blog post I am getting a Sugar Glider.