Another amazing animal are domestic dogs, especially the herding dogs. A herding dog has to be trilingual, understand human, dog and sheep. They also understand the concept of the chain of command, and can be left alone to deal with complex problems even with living critters.
I used to have a Belgian Malinois, called Proton, who understood chain of command, based on the situation. This breed is often used for Military and Civilian K-9, but they were originally bred to be herding dogs. Proton came from a breeder who was a AKC American Confirmation Champion. Proton's dad; Brutus, was the only dog in the history of that breed, to reach the level of Platinum level Grand Champion. Proton was smart and pretty with his show dog fur and his innate herding instincts per breed standards.
I trained him to be more of a service dog. If I was a little tipsy from drinking he would treat me as his sheep and try to keep me steady. But if it all was fine, he was ready for me to give him orders and things to do. On funny thing he would do, was if I was doing push-ups, he would think I was trying to get up and could not, so he crawl under men and then try to lift me to my feet. He was good at improvising.
I bought that dog as a puppy to help me care for my elderly parents years ago. They were on each other's nerves and I thought a puppy would give them a pleasant distraction. It worked. My mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and as the dog grew, he would look out for them. His role changed as the Alzheimers got worse, with him adapting by himself. My training for him was to encourage his instincts, instead of trying to micromanage with tricks and order. The only order I taught him was "all done". This meant whatever he or we were doing was done and time to change to something new. He could stop anything on a dime and pivot. He could adapt to new situations using his herding instincts for care.
One phase of Alzheimers causes the person to get angry and even violent. One day a visiting nurse came in my parents home to see my mother. She told me the dog was protecting my father from my mother, while not hurting either. My mother was afraid to hurt the dog so she stopped if the dog interceded.
As her condition got worse, there is a stage where people will wander out of the house and get lost. This happened one day with the dog following her out and then walking with her off leash. He was good off leash so this worked out. That was his call. A neighbor called the police to help her. The dog stay with her and then peacefully surrendered her to the police, so they could help. After that I was good with the police, since they had the same breed for their K-9 dogs. I could even get away with walking him off leash in public parks since they assumed we were training and socializing. It was more the dog than me.
His last major adaption was as things got really advanced, and there was a constant stream of people coming and going; home aids, nurses, doctor, insurance, elder services, the dog became the gate keeper. I would have to leave the door unlocked, while at work, so all the people could come and go. My parents may not hear the door. I would introduce news visitors to the dog, once, so he could smell them, as their pass key. After that he would hear the door, greet and smell the person and then disappear upstairs. Although K-9 looking, he was well liked because he was calm and quiet and did not try to over manage the situation.
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