Oh fachrissake! If English is your first language and you are more than eight years old with an IQ above average room temperature, you have no excuse whatsoever for not learning its vocabulary. I refer to the idiotic email you forwarded, titled, “Dumb animals? I think not!”

“Dumb” as in the phrase “dumb animals” has nothing whatsoever to do with intelligence, it simply refers to an animal’s inability to speak. Just as “deaf and dumb” never meant “can’t hear, and stupid to boot”, “dumb animal” never meant it wasn’t intelligent. Dumb has come to mean “unintelligent”, at least in casual speech**, but in this respect, it means only “speechless”, as in, “I was struck dumb by the magnitude of your stupidity and illiteracy.” Animals cannot speak English, and apparently, neither can you. The word “dumbass”, however, does refer to intelligence, or rather to a lack thereof. That one should be more than familiar to you.

**The original word “dumb” comes from Middle English and means “speechless” or “incapable of speech”. We get “dumb” to mean “stupid” thanks to German immigrants, and the similarity of “dumb” to their word “dumm”, which does mean stupid (as in “dummkopf”).