Is My Tortoise Really This Smart?

MarginatedMooney

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Okay, so I feed little Phil mazuri pellets twice a week, on Wednesday and Sunday mornings. Normally, he sleeps inside his log hide at night but the past two Saturdays, he has slept outside his log and is immediately ready for pellets and heading toward them as soon as I put them on his slate on Sunday morning.

Is he so smart that he knows he gets pellets on Sundays and is intentionally sleeping outside of his log on Saturday night so he's ready for them the next morning or is this a coincidence? ?
Maybe I need to wait and see if this pattern continues?
 

Jan A

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Okay, so I feed little Phil mazuri pellets twice a week, on Wednesday and Sunday mornings. Normally, he sleeps inside his log hide at night but the past two Saturdays, he has slept outside his log and is immediately ready for pellets and heading toward them as soon as I put them on his slate on Sunday morning.

Is he so smart that he knows he gets pellets on Sundays and is intentionally sleeping outside of his log on Saturday night so he's ready for them the next morning or is this a coincidence? ?
Maybe I need to wait and see if this pattern continues?
If that be true, why isn't he doing the same on Tues. nights? I don't think torts are stupid. They are just different from humans. We don't necessarily speak their language. I'm still learning Meow from my cats.
 

TammyJ

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Does he do the same thing on Tuesday nights too???
 

zovick

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Okay, so I feed little Phil mazuri pellets twice a week, on Wednesday and Sunday mornings. Normally, he sleeps inside his log hide at night but the past two Saturdays, he has slept outside his log and is immediately ready for pellets and heading toward them as soon as I put them on his slate on Sunday morning.

Is he so smart that he knows he gets pellets on Sundays and is intentionally sleeping outside of his log on Saturday night so he's ready for them the next morning or is this a coincidence? ?
Maybe I need to wait and see if this pattern continues?
Pure coincidence, IMHO.
 

TammyJ

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Does he do the same thing on Tuesday nights too???
Tammy, that is the key question. Hope it gets an answer. We may be in for a dramatic (and possibly disturbing) revelation concerning the intelligence of our tortoises.
 

xyhapu

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It could be that he notices you behave differently/you are around more on Saturdays due to it being the weekend, and has learned to associate that with the pellets? Explains why he doesn't 'recognize' Tuesdays since it's a weekday. A simple association like that would IMO be well within a tortoise's abilities.
 
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