I like both felines and canines. My brother's family had a cat for its whole life. When young it allowed his children to tug and pull on all parts of his anatomy. Only when they and he were older did he put up graduated resistance. He would only drink from running water. Once when I was in charge of him I was instructed to take him to the vet. I put him in his fabric carrier and duly drove over there. He was clearly not happy about what was a spooky environment for him, but he responded with an alert, totally self controlled air of alert concern, quite different from panic (and he proved to be okay). I visited his grave last Summer.

I have friends with an elderly black Lab. She can only be understood as sage. She understands that her owners aren't powerful enough to control her and she patiently waits for them to put her leash on for the walks around frozen parks where people are roaring by in large pickups. She loves the snow and the only out of control thing from her owner's point of view is her ingestion of dried grass when she can find it. And she duly returns it to them the next day, right on the carpet.

I watched a video of a frog with a bunch of tadpoles wriggling around in a drying puddle. The frog used its powerful rear legs to drive a channel through the mud to get them to running water. You can't tell me that frog didn't 'know' what it was doing. There's a lot of intelligence out there, in myriad forms.

Forgive me. I just read "The Soul of an Octopus".