You've got a point there. Some of the animals do dance around the intelligent side of knowledge and being rather aware of what's going on with everybody. But I consider that they have their own interest and wants. A squirrel no matter how clever he is, isn't going to want to integrate with society. He's just gonna want his trees and his nuts. Even if he could do business with people. Whats he going to offer us besides a mouth full of nuts for more nuts? He's not going to have a coin purse. Unless he knows where a person with a partocukar coin purse just got maul in the wild.
I dont think animals can learn common language and I imagine we we are talking to the animal. The rest of your party is like, "there he goes chittering to animals again" like Kronk from Emperors new grove.
I mean look at starwars right? A whole bunch of aliens of all sizes and shapes all living together, I'm sure there would be a way for the squirel to get a job and get gold, it could be good at tasks in which smaller hands are good, like making watches or knitting or something similar. Then the squirel could get a nice little house and all the nuts it would want. Humans also can survive like cavemen did but we want to live in comfort and if you have intelligence why not?
