clearly, you haven't seen the simpson's episode that explains the science behind this.

does the skunk go dormant in the winter if you leave him in the house? like, is that some kind of circadian thing or is it based on temperature?

you know, they say that understanding hand signals are a sign of extreme intelligence in the animal kingdom. pretty much only elephants can pull it off, apparently. and, the evidence is mounting that elephants are even smarter than chimps are.

anybody that's had a dog realizes they can understand pointing, but apparently only with training. i'm a little skeptical. some dog psychologist will appear on the thread and argue the dog understands the pointing due to prior conditioning, but i don't feel the argument would hold up if really challenged.

regardless of the status of dogs, i just met a skunk that understood my hand signals. it noticed me sitting there and put it's tail up. but, a little wave of the hand was enough to realize i did not desire to harm it and sent it off in the direction i wanted to send it in.

speciesism aside, i really think we've got animals all wrong. i'm not suggesting some kind of disney alter-reality or something. there's certainly a bar to cross-species communication in terms of cognitive ability to comprehend attempts to communicate, but my experience suggests to me that that bar is really set fairly low, especially amongst mammals.