What Are Animals Thinking? (Hint: More Than You Suspect)

Time Magazine ^ | August 25, 2014 | Jeffrey Kluger

[2ndDivisionVet]

The mind of an animal is a far richer, more complex thing than most people know — as a new TIME book reveals.

Let’s be honest, you’d probably rather die than wake up tomorrow morning and find out you’d turned into an animal. Dying, after all, is inevitable, and there’s even a certain dignity to it: Shakespeare did it, Einstein did it, Galileo and Washington and Twain all did it. And you, someone who was born a human and will live your life as a human, will end your life that way too.

But living that life as an animal — an insensate brute, incapable of reason, abstraction, perhaps even feeling? Unthinkable. Yes, yes, the animals don’t recognize the difference, and neither would you. If you’re a goat, you possess the knowledge of a goat, and that can’t be much. But there’s more to it than that.

Human beings have always had something of a bipolar relationship with the millions of other species with which we share the planet. We are fascinated by them, often dazzled by them. They can be magnificently beautiful, for one thing: the explosive color and frippery of a bird of paradise, the hallucinatory variety of the fish in a coral reef, the otherworldly markings and architecture of a giraffe. Even the plain or ugly animals — consider the naked, leathery grayness of the rhino or elephant — have a certain solidity and equipoise to them. And to see an animal at what appears to be play — the breaching dolphin, the swooping raptor — is to think that it might be fun to have a taste, a tiny taste, of their lives....

[bigbob]

Very sorry for your loss, it is never easy to provide that final gift of love.

[skinkinthegrass]

@ the zoo..Simon & Garfunkel

[skinkinthegrass]

Carolinas Anolis..Carolina Anole;Green Anole.
a fine childhood friend. 😄

[skinkinthegrass]

yeah..i was warned about them (alligator Liz.) before put 'em in any enclosure with other lizards..very sharp teeth/very "active". 😳

[Organic Panic]

Couch might float away. Must hold down couch.
Master is not in bed. Must protect bed
My belly needs rubbed.
Food.
Pee
Must sleep to recover from my exhausting dog duties.

[Salamander]

Those are wonderful!

You know of my ‘snake thing’ but I recently got a Russian Tortoise.

Being wild-caught and sold as a pet, I really did not expect much of her, interaction-wise.

Although I’m very aware of the strong personalities of snakes, for some reason, [I’m ashamed to admit] that I really did not anticipate anything similar from turtles/tortoises.

What a surprise she has been.

After a week of adjustment, she started by coming out of her ‘house’ in the morning when she saw that I was up, actively seeking me out.

Then came the ‘demands’ for personal attention, including but not limited to hand feeding of special treats.

I guess I should have known, seeing this tortoise’s sense of play, possession...and *revenge*. :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81720bVYf9Q

[Salamander]

Cat owner?

[Clint N. Suhks]

Whitetail are over abundant because they no longer have natural predators and
are dying from starvation and disease because there are so many.

Not harvesting them is cruel to the general population.

[OftheOhio]

That turtle loved the dogs ball, haha. I loved it when he chomped down on the mouthy terrier’s leg. Hope you been riding, boat races are coming up in my neck of the woods. Thunder in the Hills.

[Salamander]

I *think* it was the turtle’s ball.

:D

We have been riding when it’s not cold and rainy.

“Global warming” has pretty much eliminated real summers for us, over the last 10 years or so.

[OftheOhio]

It’s terribly hot here, I went fishing this week and spent a part of the day with a great Blue Heron. I talked to him and we came to an understanding. He got surprisingly close, for his species is typically very skittish. He probably wasn’t more than twenty feet from me for a long time. Both of us fishing.

[Salamander]

That is just awesome.

[uglybiker]

Do you reeeeeeallly want to know what your dog is thinking?

[Secret Agent Man]

i hope he starts with his balls.

[Secret Agent Man]

dogs, cats and rabbits - generally, develop an intelligence level of between a 5-7 year old child equivalent. of course like anything, some can exceed that and some don’t make it even to that.

[kelly4c]

Sorry for your loss. Pets are very much family members. I just lost my cat a few weeks ago and was amazed at how much grief I experienced over it.

[Gefn]

I’m so sorry your kitten went to the Rainbow Bridge. You take care.

[Tolkien]

I thought you were talking about the animals in Ferguson.

[Slings and Arrows]

I had to send my Baby Kitten over Rainbow Bridge today.

I'm very sorry for your loss.

[98ZJ USMC]

“This is why I gave up hunting. I regretted the last whitetail deer I shot three years ago and have not picked up a rifle since.”

-----

The very same thing happened to me in the mid-60s. I saw a buck with his harem on the top of a rise grazing at sunrise. I looked at the peaceful scene and could not shoot. I have not been hunting since but have been fishing for food but not for sport.

No, you stopped hunting because it was/is NOT absolutely necessary to do so to survive. You, and I, can do our hunting and gathering on aisles 4,6,8 and 12 of Kroger.

One may marvel at all that is nature and still encounter no moral quandaries about taking game for food. It's the need vs. the kill. I have no NEED for game, thus I do not hunt it. If I need it, I will hunt it, regardless of the optics.

Same for fishing. I have never kept Bass. Walleye? You betcha. Crappie, Bluegill and Rock Bass go without saying. Great eating. Northern? I have, but I don't any longer. Northern is great eating, but I can do much better with panfish.