Animals are like autistic savants. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that animals might actually be autistic savants. Animals have special talents normal people don't, the same way autistic people have special talents normal people don't; and at least some animals have special forms of genius normal people don't, the same way some autistic savants have special forms of genius. I think most of the time animal genius probably happens for the same reason autistic genius does: a difference in the brain autistic people share with animals.
Temple GrandinA cat can be social, but a dog, we've bred this hyper social animal that's really truly different and will do stuff for us just to please us with praise and stroking.
Temple GrandinWe found if you took the dog out for 45 minutes a day and worked with it that the solitary stress hormone, cortisol, went down. But then it went right back up again because they didn't keep doing it.
Temple Grandin