what is the smartest living animal?... for school

I got 14 cats, and they are smart, you can witness that when you have allot of pets, cause they interact with each other just, like humans, meaning they have bonds between themselves and rivalries, my white cat for example, hates the black female cat, but loves the yellow male cat;
My chocolate colour cat named chocolate, loves to lay on the sink, just to be there, he know he can't, so if he sees I'm going near there the gets out of there, but if I yell a him to get out he won't, he'll go to the edge and wait till he is certain that I’m going to get of m chair and walk over there, if he's not sure I'll do that he won't get out, he'll stay on the edge while I yell at him.
and each one does his stuff, for example, the black and while male cat knows he must go to my GF and pet her, he really touches her face softly with his paw, and them he'll get milk.

My English teacher is a Trekkie so I probably could write about Vulcans.

thanks... I hate research papers soooooooooo much... I would write a report on vulcans if I could... My english teacher wouldn't like that though...

Since Humans are out of the question, I would say VULCANS...

Seriously, according to most known research it would be the great apes.