And they are able to show insight and planning to get what they want...

Once a friend of our dog came visiting, grabbed his favorite toy and happily chewed it in the yard. Which our dog clearly resented.

So he cleaned up the yard and hid all other toys in the house. Usually that's our job - he never bothers to look after his toys.

Then he came out with an old tennis ball, pranced around, played with it, like "Dude, this is the BEST toy EVER invented. An it's mine."

His friend dropped the coveted toy and came over to investigate... our dog dropped the ball, grabbed the toy and hid it in the house.

His friend was left with a slimy, boring ball.

I really can't think of any other explanation - he knew how to get his toy, but also anticipated this trick wouldn't work twice. So the cleanup in advance.

Yes, that was clever.

But he showed real intelligence by never doing anything like this in front of us ever again. ;)

I remember a video from a camera someone set up in their home to see what their dog -- who was not allowed on the furniture -- did when they were gone. It may not be surprising that the video depicted the dog rolling around and rubbing itself on all of the furniture.

It's a small wonder whether the dog did that when the owner was home!

That is a rare level of cunning!

A simpler, somewhat common version is when one dog pretends that there is something interesting outside, so that the other dog would drop the toy and would run to the window hoping to bark at the mailman, while the trickster picks up the left behind toy.

Some dogs actually learn to see through this ruse. It can be very amusing to watch them darting instinctively, then suddenly realizing what is about to happen, returning back to pick up the toy and only then going to the window more leisurely.

The way a dog behaviorist described it to me was, "A dog can feel jealous, but the dog doesn't _know_ that he/she feels jealous." I don't know if I believe that, but I've been pondering it for the last 20 years.

Probably varies dog by dog, same as it varies human by human. Some people are intimately aware of their own jealousy, other need some form of therapy to make it apparent.

Dogs are amazing. And human brains/minds are without doubt even more complex than those of dogs. But it is typical for humans to not be aware of the true reasons of behaving or even feeling in the way they do.

When asked about causes of our behavior, we readily make up an explanation, and we believe our own explanations completely whether they are true or false. There is a considerable literature demonstrating in an experimental setting how easily the behavior is controlled by the factors that are not consciously perceived, and how it is rationalized post factum in plausible but arbitrary ways. More informally, many fiction writers show characters, for example falling in love and showing that through their behavior, but refusing to admit that they are in love, even when explicitly confronted with the facts.

Of course one can say that an adult human can at least in principle, sometimes, examine what is going on, while a dog is probably much less capable of such complex analysis and is more like a small child. This seems plausible.

I'd argue that a) it takes years for humans to develop the ability to be aware of their own jealousy, and b) some of us don't ever get there.

I think it would be overwhelming if we really acknowledged how sentient animals are.

I'm being completely honest here, I believe pigs and cows are just as intelligent as dogs. They're simply limited by their physical bodies and our understanding of their expressions.

But I still won't go vegan.

On an intelligent level I believe it's wrong to inseminate cows so they produce milk, but I still won't stop drinking it. Because I am lazy and comfortable in my ways. And that's what I believe most people are, even if they won't admit to it.

I think acknowledging the simultaneous truths that there is terrible suffering in the world, and that we are meant to perpetuate that suffering, is just maturity and wisdom.

Morality is an artificial instrument of social control that minimizes human wars. Otherwise, all creatures are here to kill and breed.

I beg to differ: all creatures are here to breed. I’ll be surpised to ear about creatures that kill as an end instead of a mean but hey, there’s still to discover.

One in every ten thousand or so human males either kills other human beings for pleasure or would if they could. This may be specific to humans, but I wouldn’t be too surprised to find that there are serial killers in other species. Or rather, would-be serial killers, because without tool use an animal would have to be a freakish outlier not only in terms of “psychopathy” but also in size and strength to be able to afford expending energy to kill another member of their species for no good reason.