I can understand why cats and dogs are smart since they don’t have to be on survival mode every day.
What I don’t understand is why are pigs smart? And why are sheep dumb if pigs are smart? They are in the same height in the hierarchy of needs.
In: Biology
It has everything to do with the animals they were domesticated from. Domestication itself hasn’t really had time to affect the animals’ intelligence much.
Cats and dogs were both domesticated from wild hunters (wildcats and wolves). In general, hunting animals tend to be higher intelligence than other animals, because they rely on their wits more to get food. That’s why domestic cats and dogs retain that intelligence.
Pigs were domesticated from wild swine, which were foragers, which also needed to be intelligent.
Contrast that with sheep and cows, which domesticated from wild herbivores. Herbivores in general are less intelligent than hunting animals because they don’t rely as much on their wits to get food. And sheep and cows are still dumb after domestication.
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