It's the 7.44s against the 1.0s and 1.2s

Sadie, a 1.2?

Susie, a 1.0?

These numbers have prompted much discussion and renaming of the creatures living in our house this week.  It all started with an article that appeared in our local newspaper over the weekend.  Due to the tragic loss of a Sea World trainer, our newspaper has had extensive coverage on Killer Whales the last several weeks.  The article in question was about the intelligence of the dolphins, whales, sea lions, etc. that live at Sea World.

This particular article was doing a brain to body ratio comparison and using that as their measurement for a species' potential for intelligence.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at these type of things, we humans did rank highest with a brain/body ratio of 7.44.

Can you guess which animal had the next highest ratio after us?

Not suprising to me.  I knew these special mammals had to be close to the human B/B ratio to humans. They register at 5.31.  There was a time in my life that I majored in Zoology and aspired to be a dolphin trainer, so I had an inkling of their high intelligence and large brain size. No wonder they always have that "we will take over the world one day" smile of their faces.

The next two in this ranking are the chimpanzee with a B/B ratio of 2.49 and the Rhesus Mondey with a ratio of 2.09.  Elephants are next, 1.87, then the whales, 1.76.


Our dogs have a B/B ration of 1.2 and the cats are 1.0.  At first this started a "dog person" vs. "cat person" mentality in our household.  Mr. Tennis was quite smug that "his team" is a mere .2 points above "my team".  First of all I was not on a team, I was simply defending the "dumb" cats in the household.  You know the ones that tell the dogs what to do, clean up after themselves and have trained us 7.44s to feed them on schedule and let them in and out when so instructed.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the dogs are dumb.  They too have trained us to anticipate their every need and have even taken over the new bed without any resistence from us so-called superior beings.  Why is it me, the 7.44, twisting my body into various contortions throughout the night to accomodate the 1.2s? And the 1.0s too, for that matter?  And should my foot or elbow graze one particular 1.2, I get attitude.

The 7.44s in the house have now actually bonded together in the last week to work together against these lesser beings and have begun referring to them in snarky, yet subservient snippets: "Uh, I guess the 1.0 wants to come in again after just being let out 30 seconds ago, better open the door for her", "Hey, we'd better go out and throw the tennis ball for the 1.2s or they will get really wound up from being cooped up inside and sleeping all day, but don't let their feet get wet, they don't like that" or "OMG, we are out of 1.0 food, They'll throw a hissy fit. Let's hurry out in the torrential rainstorm and get their food before they notice".


There's something not quite right about how this household is being run. Would we change it? No. We can't risk making them all mad at us. Afterall there are four of "them" and only two of us.  But at least collectively their B/B ratio doesn't match up to even one of ours.

 Again, why are "they" still in charge?