Who Knew?

Here’s a shocker: scientists are beginning to believe that animals have personalities.

According to a recent story in our local daily newspaper, scientists at the University of Guelph who were conducting a study were sitting by the Credit River west of Toronto. They apparently noticed that brook trout exhibited different personalities.

Let’s just forget for a moment that highly paid scientists are sitting on the riverbank and calling it work. Let’s instead focus on the obvious: animals might have personalities – who knew?

Here’s a study I’d like to see: let’s capture a group of scientists and take them away from their natural environment on the riverbanks of Ontario and run them through some tests. First of all, let’s determine whether any of these people have pets and, if so, how many of them are pet owners.

Then we’ll isolate the group of scientists who do indeed have pets and observe them in the natural environment of their own homes.

We need to determine why these people have not yet clued into the fact that their family dog or cat behaves differently than, say, an end table or the dishwasher.