Toilet training cats

The Litter Kwitter:

Cat taught to eat with chopsticks

from youtube:

Clicker training and the impact of learning a simple concept

from clickertraining.com:

"Clicker training" is an animal training method based on behavioral psychology that relies on marking desirable behavior and rewarding it.  Desirable behavior is usually marked by using a "clicker," a mechanical device that makes a short, distinct "click" sound which tells the animal exactly when they're doing the right thing. This clear form of communication, combined with positive reinforcement, is an effective, safe, and humane way to teach any animal any behavior that it is physically and mentally capable of doing. 
[...]
First widely used by dolphin trainers who needed a way to teach behavior without using physical force, operant conditioning (the scientific term for clicker training) can be and has been successfully employed with animals of all sizes and species, both domesticated and wild, young and old; all breeds of dogs and puppies, cats, birds, leopards, rats, rabbits, chinchillas, fish, and more.
[...]
The same principles have also been applied to training for athletes, dancers, skaters, and other people. Called “TAGteach,” this form of training uses a click as a marker signal to teach precise physical motions quickly, accurately, and positively.

 I have seen scads of videos on various streaming video sites demonstrating this technique, and it seems like a very humane method for teaching non-humans.  One of the things that I think gets lost in the shuffle of educating non-humans is the implications for learning one simple concept with many many uses. One of the best examples of this is how to operate a electrical switch.  There are videos that demonstrate this (most frequently with cats and dogs) and fail to fully extrapolate the potential for application here.  Like a button for calling 911...

This becomes very apparent when one googles "dog calls 911".  I would like to point out the number of times that this has occurred... How much would you like to wager that if every household dog knew how to perform this action there could be thousands more (human) lives saved every year by non-humans.  I would further wager that if you had a seizure and a non-human called 911, unlocked the front door and opened the door to get you the help you needed to survive... you would have a much harder time tolerating the abuse of non-humans or at very least of the same species that saved you.

Wipe out invasive aquatic plants (like hydrilla!) using Grass Carp

from wikipedia:

The grass carp grows very rapidly, and young fish stocked in the spring at 20 centimetres (7.9 in) will reach over 45 centimetres (18 in) by fall, and adults often attain nearly 1.2 metres (3.9 ft) in length and over 18 kilograms (40 lb) in weight. According to one study, they live an average of 5-9 years with the oldest gaining 11 years.  They eat up to 3 times their own body weight daily. They thrive in small lakes and backwaters that provide an abundant supply of fresh water vegetation.

This approach is less novel than you might think and is being employed in many American cities affected by hydrilla.  What is hydrilla?

from wikipedia:

Hydrilla is naturalised and invasive in the United States following release in the 1960s from aquariums into waterways in Florida. It is now established in the southeast from Connecticut to Texas, and also in California.^[8] By the 1990s control and management were costing millions of dollars each year.

Who throws a few fish into a lake to solve a prolific invasive plant?  Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Florida to name a few.  An added point of interest regarding the Grass Carp, their intelligence... and their ability to foil anglers.

from ufl.edu:

However, lake managers and biologists were also in for a few surprises: when attempts were made to remove the fish from the lake, they were amazed at the the carp's uncanny ability to outsmart virtually every type of fishing technique. Nets, hook-and-line, electro-shocking, even poison baits were minimally successful, especially after the first application. It soon became apparent that once released, grass carp were nearly impossible to remove. As of 2005, there are still no easy ways to remove grass carp from a stocked lake.

Reciprocal altruism among rats

from arstechnica.com:

That species is Rattus norvegicus, commonly known as the Norway brown rat, well known to behavioral researchers around the world. In this study, the rats were tested for reciprocal altruism; altruistic behavior that is influenced by the rats’ prior experience. The rats were tasked with pulling a lever so that another rat would receive a food treat. Rats that had previously been helped were more likely pull the lever, and did so faster than those who had not been helped. The more recently that they had been on the receiving end of kindness, the more likely they were to help out others.

Militarized marine mammals. dolphins and sealions.

from schneier on security:

Dolphins and sealions:

A Navy seal - actually a sea lion - took less than a minute to find a fake mine under a pier near San Francisco's AT&T Park. A dolphin quickly located a terrorist lurking in the black water before another sea lion, using a device carried in its mouth, cuffed the pretend saboteur's ankle so authorities could reel him in.

Earlier posts on the topic.

How do we know that rats are smarter than the average 2 year old child?

from ratballs.com:

Someone asked, "How do we know that rats are smarter than the average 2 year old child?" After a bit of contemplation, here's what I came up with:
I honestly think this "intellect of a two year old" is supposed to apply to birds (because birds throw fits like a two year old) and not rats but there are some good cases for rats anyway:


1) Mazes - Rats will learn a maze by trial and error. Once learned, (thanks to marking), can repeat the maze with less or no error.

2) Depth perception - a 2 year old baby will fall off of a ledge if allowed to do so. A rat will sense the depth and, in most cases, if unable to sense that "below" is nearby, won't take the leap.

3) Learning through positive reinforcement - You can train a rat to do most anything (and, even if unaware, you do so every day). When you give a rat a treat, you are reinforcing a behavior. If the same behavior is reinforced regularly at the onset and intermittently further down the line, they will continue the behavior. COSI has rats playing basketball; I have rats who think they're a gaggle of geese ;O)

4) Learning through positive reinforcement II - A rat knows love...at least affection. A positive reinforcer needn't be a treat. A rat learns who is friend and who is foe and treats each accordingly. Much like a two year old...only less gnawing from the rat if you are "friend."

5) Learning through positive reinforcement III - It doesn't take much to potty train a rat. Not sure about a two year old, but it never looked quite as easy.

6) Responsiveness to stimuli - They react. They flinch. They hide. They cower. A two year old child won't necessarily know that a sharp loud noise is something to be afraid of -- a rat will.

7) Nourishment - They know what makes them feel bad and what made their mom feel bad and what made anyone in their colony feel bad. Silly enough, they sniff other rats' mouths and butts to find out what they ate - to determine what is good (tasty) and bad (poisonous, illness-inducing). They will retain this information. A two-year old depends totally on what those he trusts say is OK.

8) Persistence - A rat can swim for 72 hours straight (but the experiments that led to this discovery should have never happened). Humans, all of them, break down from stress much sooner than that.

9) Dependence upon the colony - Rats trust and depend on everyone in their colony. If they are cold, they snuggle up with or under another rat (two year olds depend on their colony as well, but they don't have the liberty or sense to seek warmth when needed). Outsiders are a different story - much like a two-year old.

10) Stashing - They (usually) remember where they stockpile their food. This is survival instinct. A two year old just burps the food.

11) Survival Instinct I - They exhibit caution (when exploring new territory, for example, they will venture out a small bit, return to "home base," go back out and venture further, return, and so forth. A two-year old will keep chugging along.)

12) Survival Instinct II - They know that if they exhibit signs of illness that, as prey animals, this will make them more susceptible to injury and/or death. They hide illness (but...since our guys are domesticated, this isn't so "smart" because we can't help them if we don't know they're ill). Two year olds just drool which is always sickening ;O)

13) Organizational skills - They develop organizational structures at an early age and stay in their place within that structure (usually) in order to benefit the group as a whole. At two, a child is testing and breaking the "structure" (The "No" years).

14) Hunger - If a rat is hungry he will find a way out of his cage by whatever means necessary and he will find food. Even baby rats around 2-3 weeks of age, if left without food, will find something and find a way to eat it. A two year old child will just cry and cry and cry and hope that someone hears.

15) Grooming - From 1 day of age, they know how to clean themselves. Your average (male) two year old won't know how to do this until he's 16. 

Living with 3 intelligent, sweet-hearted rats, I can't say I hadn't come to these conclusions strictly from personal experience.

Deciphering Dolphin Language with Picture Words

from speakdolphin.com:

In an important breakthrough in deciphering dolphin language, researchers in Great Britain and the United States have imaged the first high definition imprints that dolphin sounds make in water.
The key to this technique is the CymaScope, a new instrument that reveals detailed structures within sounds, allowing their architecture to be studied pictorially. Using high definition audio recordings of dolphins, the research team, headed by English acoustics engineer, John Stuart Reid and Florida-based dolphin researcher, Jack Kassewitz, has been able to image, for the first time, the imprint that a dolphin sound makes in water. The resulting "CymaGlyphs," as they have been named, are reproducible patterns that are expected to form the basis of a lexicon of dolphin language, each pattern representing a dolphin “picture word.”  (more)

 Left: cymaglyph of adult dolphin voice, Right: cymaglyph of a baby dolphin calling to its mother

Rats laugh when you tickle them

as seen on huffington post and abc news.  In this video you can observe rats laughing at a higher pitch than humans can hear.  In order for humans to observe the sound at a pitch that we can hear a transducer is used.  One can use a bat detector to do this as it has the same basic function and range required to hear rats communicate/laugh on a higher pitch than we can otherwise hear.

Wondering if your pet rat is ticklish and don't have a bat detector laying around?  You can buy a generic bat detector  for around $90 or if you enjoy simple electronics projects you can make one very inexpensively.

Susan Savage-Rumbaugh on apes

Into the great debate over intelligence and instinct -- over what makes us human -- Susan Savage-Rumbaugh has thrown a monkey wrench. Her work with apes has forced a new way of looking at what traits are truly and distinctly human, and new questions about whether some abilities we attribute to "species" are in fact due to an animal's social environment. She believes culture and tradition, in many cases more than biology, can account for differences between humans and other primates.

Her bonobo apes, including a superstar named Kanzi, understand spoken English, interact, and have learned to execute tasks once believed limited to humans -- such as starting and controlling a fire. They aren't trained in classic human-animal fashion. Like human children, the apes learn by watching. "Parents really don't know how they teach their children language," she has said. "Why should I have to know how I teach Kanzi language? I just act normal around him, and he learns it."

Prairie Dogs Hack Baltimore Zoo

from schneier on security:

Fun story, with a lot of echoes of our own security problems:

It took just 10 minutes for a dozen prairie dogs to outwit the creators of the Maryland Zoo's new $500,000 habitat. Aircraft wire, poured concrete and slick plastic walls proved no match for the fast-footed rodents, the stars of a new exhibit that opens today.
As officials were promoting the return of the zoo's 28 prairie dogs -- their former digs had been out of sight in a closed section of the animal preserve for more than four years -- some of the critters found ways to jump, climb and get over the walls of their prairie paradise, a centerpiece exhibit just inside the zoo's main entrance.
[...]
But a few intrepid prairie dogs tried to find their way out, sending keepers scrambling to plug escape routes.
An hour later, just as zookeepers thought everything was under control, one rodent made it to the top of the wall. A dozen workers closed in. The prairie dog seemed to think better of it and jumped back into the enclosure.
"They find all the weak spots and exploit them," said Karl Kranz, the zoo's vice president for animal programs and chief operating officer.
[...]
Zoo staff members say the animals cannot burrow their way out because the former Kodiak bear environment is essentially a large concrete swimming bowl. The soil depth at Prairie Dog Town ranges from 6 feet to 8 feet.
"The dirt must be deeper than 36 inches in order for the prairie dogs to make their burrows under the frost line," Kranz said. "We took soil samples from the old exhibit so the soils could be matched exactly to what they were used to having."
After foiling the escape attempt, zoo workers adjusted wire fencing and installed more slippery plastic on the walls.

The language of prairie dogs

from wikipedia:

The Gunnison’s prairie dog communicates through forms of physical contact, such as cuddling and kissing, and through vocalization, such as a warning bark. Their vocal communication is the foundation to their survival and structure of their community. Their system of vocal communication is complex and may be one of the most advanced forms of communication of all natural animal languages.^[3] Con Slobodchikoff, a Northern Arizona University biology professor, has been a researching the behavior of prairie dogs for twenty years, and states that prairie dogs “have one of the most advanced forms of natural language known to science.”
The bark is a combination of one or two high-pitched audible syllables, with the second syllable lower and deeper.^[11] Prairie dogs have a unique sound to identify various predators.^[12] They also have different barks for a warning signal and an “all-clear” signal. Researchers and experts have been able to classify up to eleven of the distinct warning calls that the prairie dog uses to communicate.^[13] Also, females with offspring are more likely to give off a warning bark than males.
The warning signal is their primary source of survival because it alerts the other prairie dogs to nearby danger. The warning signal can last for up to thirty minutes and can be heard for nearly a mile away. As danger approaches closer, the intensity of the signal increases and ends after the prairie dog has entered into its safe haven.
Studies have also shown that prairie dogs can distinguish between the different colors of clothing that people wear, and between people expressing threatening and non-threatening behavior.

(more)

Joshua Klein on the intelligence of crows

Hacker and writer Joshua Klein is fascinated by crows. (Notice the gleam of intelligence in their little black eyes?) After a long amateur study of corvid behavior, he's come up with an elegant machine that may form a new bond between animal and human.