Crescent Pulsar R wrote: Not necessarily. For one, most animals can't manipulate their environment as much as humans can, because they don't have hands (opposable thumbs, anyway). So it'd depend on the condition of their environment, because intelligence will only pervade so far as it's inspired to develop. Seeing as most of the examples that I gave either had them being raised by humans, or living among humans, they would have the examples and inspiration to develop human-like intelligence and behavior.
To give a real-life example of what I'm talking about, some birds have the ability to say human words. Normally they don't say them, because they're in the wild and thus it doesn't occur to them. However, expose them to humans, and they have examples by which to be inspired by, because what use would they have for human words out in the wild? (Actually, that makes me wonder why the birds that can say human words decide to do so when they're exposed to it.)
Wyrd wrote: More importantly, quite a few animals show an ability to learn and adapt on par with a human child, they just don't have instincts that are geared towards tool usage and modifying your environment to suit you, or the manipulative appendages to do so(opposable thumbs). Horses in particular have the intelligence of about an 8 year old(if I'm remembering correctly. It has been a long time since I read this.) Pigs are also quite intelligent. Apes will not only learn and use sign language, albeit a fairly uncomplicated form, they will go on to teach that language to their children. Monkeys can also learn sign language, but they usually don't teach it to their children. Just one of the idiosyncracies between monkeys and apes.
I was thinking more along the lines of Ryoga's dog who as I recall got on TV, and had written on a sign that she had puppies. I seem to recall her also holding the sign as if she had fingers and thumbs. You have to admit that Chechers is odd.