YOU don’t have to look too far, these days, to find videos of animals that do tricks. Not merely zoo animals, but ordinary domesticated pets, too.
YouTube is full of them: the dog, for example, that leaps up on command from its basket, trots over to the fridge, opens the door by clutching the handle in its teeth, and returns to its owner with a can of beer in its mouth.
Then there’s the cat that responds to the ringing of a wall-mounted phone by easing the handset from its cradle and letting it fall to the floor.
Another cat somehow manages to slither up a sliding glass door and opens it just enough to squeeze through into the next room. These are just the opening acts, as it were, in one video. There are many, many more out there.
Another video, ten years old now, shows Jilli, a tiny Yorkshire Terrier, performing poker-cards trick with her owner.
But dogs that can do card-tricks are nothing new as was shown in December 1955 by the star turn at the Glasgow Herald Social Club’s Christmas party. The children were given a display of canine intelligence by Major, who had appeared on television three times, alongside his owner, Mr Warnock. In this act, which intrigued these watching children, he lifted cards from the floor and spells out his name.
It’s just a pity that Major existed before the age of smartphones and YouTube.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article