But they never talk about how stupid they are! The bar is set to zero and then everything is a bonus.

“My dog is so smart! We were having trouble opening the red wine, and he took the corkscrew and figured out how to twist the lever just right with his paw and mouth!” “My cat is so smart! We couldn’t figure out how to get the right render setting in Final Cut Pro, and she imported a H264 codec and got it working!” Then, always, “Isn’t that so smart?”

But they never say “My dog is so stupid! He can’t even talk or open doors or do basic math. He’s like retarded!”

The implication is that since their pet is so smart, they (the master) are so awesome as to be capable of creating conscious intelligence out of a mere beast.

(I, for one, am still working on creating conscious intelligence out of myself.)