These 40 Sneaky Pets Knew Exactly What They Were Doing, And It’s Equal Parts Genius And Evil

We use word buzzers with our German Shepherd mix. He now has a vocabulary of about 40 word buzzers (and would have more if I could do a better job of keeping up with making them), but earlier on, when we didn’t have quite as many, he showed us how smart he was…

We live on the 3rd floor and noticed that the top of his crate was flush with the windowsill in our bedroom, so I put a dog bed on top of his crate with a ramp so he could get up there himself. But at the beginning, he was a little wary of the ramp, so I would lift him up there, where he enjoyed surveying the neighborhood.

We have a dog bed in the livingroom, and had a “bed” buzzer for him to reference it. We called the dog bed “bunkbed” so that he wouldn’t be confused when we would reference one or the other, but at this point, I hadn’t made a “bunkbed” buzzer yet.

A couple of weeks later, he pushed “outside” + “bed.” “Outside” meant that he wanted to go outside for a walk, or out on the deck to sun himself (now we have a separate “deck” buzzer). I said, “Buddy, we don’t have a bed outside, I’m sorry.”

The next day, he pushed “outside” + “bed” again, and again, I said, “I don’t know what you want, I’m sorry.”

The following day he pushed “outside” + “bed” again and my husband realized, “I think he wants to go on the bunkbed.” So I asked, “Do you want to go on the bunkbed?” and he perked up and started going towards the bedroom, then paused, waiting for me to go with (to lift him up). So apparently, for him, the bunkbed was the bed where he could look outside.

We now have a separate buzzer for “bunkbed” and he climbs up there by himself.

He has also put together “ice” + “food” for dog ice cream cups.

We have a whole bunch of these kinds of instances. He’s very smart (and sometimes demanding) with his requests!

One day it was really quite windy but Shilo, my Border Collie, still wanted me to go out and throw the frisbee for him. I threw the frisbee into the wind so the wind wouldn't carry it into the neighbour's garden. The frisbee went one way and Shilo watched it and then ran about 50 yards in the opposite direction, stopped, turned around, and sat down. I was really wondering what he was doing, but then the frisbee got caught in the wind and was blown back towards us. It flew past me and towards Shilo and when it was nearly above his head he just jumped up and caught it. I got a lesson on how to work smarter, not harder from my Border Collie that day.

Years ago, a starving black kitten showed up in my back yard the day before Halloween. Of course I let him stay, and over the next few days, I was able to befriend him. He had a badly infected left eye that needed treatment, so when he finally let me pet/examine him, I bedded him down in the garage, scheduled a vet appointment ,and gave him as much cat food as he could handle.

He ended up becoming one of my housecats, but still seemed to remember what starvation felt like. If I ever was late with a meal, he would paw at the door that led to the garage. I guess he figured that if he could get in there again, the Infinite Cat Food Fairy would come and bless him, and he could have all the food he wanted!

I have a Tuxedo cat named Mortimer. He likes to hide and ambush the other cats. We scold him, but sometimes it's just too hilarious to seriously scold. We have those little cloth cat houses that look like pineapples. He will climb under the padding inside of it, to where it's pretty obvious that something is in there, but you can't see him, and then reach out and swat at other cats.

In another instance, we had a plastic see-through tarp lying on the floor. He LOVES getting under blankets to ambush other cats, so he hides under the see-through tarp. I tell him, "Morty, buddy... No cat is going to fall for that." RIGHT after I say this, along comes Paw Paws, my more 'robust' grey cat. He sniffs at the tarp and Morty reaches out and gets him. I'm not sure which is worse, that Mortimer thought it would work, or that it actually did work on Paws.

My sweet girl Aiko is actually really well behaved. But there are two things that fit this category and both seem to have the same reason. She hates sharing my attention. I work mostly from home, so after a while she figured out that if she unplugged the modem I stopped paying attention to the computer for a bit. The second one she only does when we are outside taking a walk and I have the audacity to pick up when someone calls me. She barks and doesn’t stop until I hang up the phone. I mean she is not wrong, it’s HER time with me and those people need to go away lol

One of my dogs (sadly now at the Bridge) worked out how to open the fridge by turning his head and gripping the door. He would go in and help himself to whatever was there. He was pretty damned clever.

Our golden retriever had a sneaky habit.
She was very well behaved and knew what she was and wasn't allowed to do.
One of the things she was NOT allowed to do was lay on the couch. She had at least 2 beds or dog cushions for herself on the floor (if the cat didn't claim one).
However, as soon as she thought everyone left the house she would go lay on the couch. She was smart about it because as soon as someone came home she would quickly and quietly hop off.
We only noticed when we would go sit on the couch almost immediately when getting home and there would be a warm spot.
When she got older she became lazy and wouldn't vacate the couch quickly enough. So when we came home we would look at her sternly and she would sheepishly slide off.
I still miss her...

This happened about 12 years ago (my cat passed just this past winter at age 18; she had a long happy life though). Dragonfly was extremely smart, and believe me, she understood what was said to her. It was shortly before Christmas and I had a small artificial tree up. A friend and I were sitting on the couch. Dragonfly kept biting one of the branches, and I kept telling her no. Finally, I yelled her name and clapped my hands. She stopped, glared at me, then she leaned forward, licked the branch, then ran off. She knew exactly what she was doing.

We got our love about 13 years ago for me specifically. I am disabled and actively sick. I needed a cat that was bomb-proof. A cat who could handle all of my problems. She decided to teach herself to go get my mom if I don't recover from throwing up in the correct amount of time. She's also sick, however, and on her last month. I'm taking her for a walk today.

My dog knows she's not supposed to bring her very big outside-ball inside. But when I am on a work call (wfh) she brings it in, while locking eyes with me, knowing full well, I can't yell at her in that moment.

I adopted our little dog Alice while my husband was out of town for work. I just needed some company during his absences and the kids were becoming very independent. He was not initially happy. She has a luxating patella so will occasionally three leg it (according to the vet it isn't painful and surgery would do more harm than good). As she grew these occurrences became rarer. Fast forward 7 years and when it is bedtime my husband makes a big show of yelling "bedtime". Alice immediately jumps onto the floor and will go completely lame until he comes and carries her to the bed. She sleeps underneath his arm and will stretch out her tiny legs into my back and push me away if we try to spoon. I still love her like crazy but never expected that the dog I SAVED would also steal my husband. 😂

Crawl into our bed at 5:30AM ... It's totally ok to sleep in the bed, but where I take offense is when he makes such a ruckus and climbs all over so I can't sleep. Only for him to sprawl all over and sleep, after I evacuated my place. For one braincell, he is an evil genius

We took in a cat from a friend; he was a big, smart boy, maybe some Maine C**n. He knew to wait to get into things when we left the house, or just as I would drift off to sleep. No houseplants at any height were safe! He would also wait for me at the window by the front door to meet me after work, and liked to play fetch - which he worked out how to do on his own.

My chonky floof Tig often decides he wants attention at 3 am, when I am sound asleep. He stands on my chest, and when that doesn’t work, he licks my eyelids. Imagine the most sensitive parts of your body being rubbed with sandpaper. It’s an evil thing he has found that works every time

Our cat likes dog food, and our dog’s feeder opens when she gets close to the feeder. Our dog sleeps in a crate at night, so the cat learned to push the dog’s feeder close to the crate at night. The feeder would open, and the cat would enjoy dog food all night long.

Female cat comes to get me when her brother doesn't let her eat because she knows he won't dare bully her when I'm around. Also, they both fart on you, which is pure, evil, biological warfare.

My cat Gretel tries blackmail: if she doesn't get her way, she threatens to pee in the kitchen area while howling loudly to get my attention.
Since she HAS peed there in the past, I take it seriously. I try to find out what she wants but if it's not possible (like me dropping everything and going to bed to keep her warm or making the rain stop Western Australia winter), then the battle of wills is ON!
She may be just a little bit spoilt ... but I did win the "Bring in the live rodents to play with in the air conditioning battle" (Western Australian summer). Not before a rat and then a mouse were mislaid. She got the rat later but we never did catch the mouse.

Henri is the smaller of my two voids, and she's a delicate little lady but very much into everything. Henri slams doors for attention. She gets behind an open door and stands up, pushing and "walking" it closed. She's trapped Loverboy in closed rooms several times. I think the most annoying is when she slams my glass shower door!

My dog does the word buzzers, only we don't have as many (13), so when there's something he wants and there's no buzzer for it, he'll bring it to me or sit and stare at the item. Sometimes he'll come and take me by the hand and lead me to what he wants. But the coolest thing he does is unbelievable! So I'm a sleepwalker, and he lays on my legs at night to keep me in bed!

One of mine hated closed doors. We had the pull-down handles and she'd open the toilet door and bathroom door - when in use even! Cupboards, as well. She'd steal thawing meat, so I started to put it in cupboards. Nope she opened it, even the ones up top. Next, in the oven's warmer drawer, she got in! Via the back of it actually, although the gap looked too small to me.
She loved to rip up paper too, so we started keeping important papers in a locked cupboard, old cabinet, with an old-style key. She'd watch us do this. I came home one day to find her sitting in front of it with a paw on either side of this key doing her best to turn it - the correct way!! Lucky it was a bit too stiff and she didn't succeed. Animals are not stupid, what they'd do with thumbs is interesting, if not scary.