“There’s something wrong with the telephone!”
My mother is hard of hearing, so my dad installed a very loud ringer on our phone that she could hear even from upstairs. Unfortunately, the system seemed to have a defect. The phone rang, but sometimes there was only a dial tone on the other end of the line. Strangely, my mother was the only person to experience this problem.
“Perhaps she doesn’t come to the phone quickly enough and the caller is hanging up before she answers,” we thought. So my mother began to hurdle down the stairs, leaping over obstacles and arriving at the phone in seconds, even from the farthest reaches of the house. Despite this, the mysterious phenomenon continued. Could it be a prank caller? Was the phone really broken?
We learned the truth, weeks later: My Quaker parrot had secretly perfected his rotary phone imitation, realized that my mother couldn’t tell it from the 
real ring at a distance, and found that by “ringing” he could make her to do acrobatics for his amusement. It wasn’t until he yelled “HELLO!” and burst out laughing in spite of himself one day as she reached for the receiver that the jig was finally up.
Do you have a tale of animal humor to share? Here are some authors who do!
The Parrot’s Lament and Other True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence, and Ingenuity by Eugene Linden. A wonderful collection of true stories from an author who has devoted his life to the study of animal intelligence.
The Inner World of Farm Animals: Their Amazing Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Capabilities by Amy Hatkoff. Real anecdotes of the compassion, romance, and wit of farm animals are interlaced with behavioral science.
Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill by Mark Bittner. The autobiographical account of one man’s life-changing relationship with wild San Francisco conures. (See also the documentary DVD!)
The Smartest Animals on the Planet: Extraordinary Tales of the Natural World’s Cleverest Creatures by Dr. Sally Boysen. Did you know that chimpanzees hunt with spears and many species of bird can count?
The Parrot Who Owns Me by Joanna Burger – Dr. Burger, a biologist, describes the profound relationship that developed between herself and an orphaned Amazon parrot named Tiko.
Alex & Me by Irene Pepperberg. Alex and Dr. Pepperberg are perhaps the most famous parrot/scientist team to challenge claims that animals lack language and emotion.
Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think by Marc D. Hauser. Not convinced that animals think and feel much like humans do? Find a skeptic’s explanations for animal behavior here.
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