Loco and Pulpo Paul, they knew

All this week Miguel has been muttering something to me about some octopus being able to tell the future; the octopus had correctly predicted the winners of various World Cup games and was predicting that Spain would win today. Miguel said that as long as the octopus was correct, he would live, but if he was wrong, they would kill him and eat him. I was trying to concentrate on a web design and hardly paid any attention until Miguel mentioned the part about killing the squid. As an animal lover, I was disgusted that the octopus would be killed if he picked the wrong team. I sort of missed the main story where the octopus had been predicting winners, and thought it was some kind of Mexican humor, which I admit I don't always 'get'.

Once in a while Miguel would try to direct my attention to the tv where they showed a tank with an octopus and two boxes. I watched the octopus float over to the boxes, but still didn't get what all the fuss was about. Until today, when I actually took the time to watch the octopus 'predict' Spain over Holland.



Loco and Miguel have this game where Miguel has a cookie which he places in one hand with Loco watching, and then he puts his hands behind his back and switches back and forth, and then puts his hands out front and waves them around and then tells Loco to pick the one with the cookie. Almost always Loco gets it right.

So today was Loco's turn to pick the winning team. Miguel cut out pictures of the flags of each country in the World Cup final and put one in each hand, along with a piece of Jerky Treat in each hand. And then he told Loco to pick one. Here's how it went down.

Loco picked Spain. Pulpo Paul picked Spain. Some parrot picked Holland. Spain won. Loco and Pulpo got it right. Draw your own conclusions about the brilliance of these animals. Although I must say - Pulpo Paul is 8 for 8, Loco is only 1 for 1, so it's possible the octopus is smarter than Loco. Shhh...don't tell Miguel.