If anyone says animals don’t communicate, don’t feel, don’t emote, don’t love, lose, experience pain, well, I say he is wrong.
Animals are not so different from us. They have relationships, friends, favorites, loves, likes, mortal enemies. They mourn the loss of their friends and family.
Even our little parrot knew when her friend and companion, Alston, was sick. She mourned her loss so much I bought Little Girl to be her new friend.
Jake, for example, has a mortal enemies list. The dogs on this list are dogs that bullied him when he was a puppy, when he couldn’t fight back. He can see them coming from a mile away. Let’s see… There’s Cody and Timothy (of course most dogs don’t like Timothy because Timothy, bless his evil heart, has a chip on his shoulder due to being named Timothy so he’s pretty much on every dog’s mortal enemies list. Dogs don’t appreciate a three-syllable name. The other dogs snicker when his owner yells out- “Timm-mooooo-theeeee!”) Then there are the dogs whose names we don’t know. I imagine Jake has his own names for them. We know them as big shaggy black dog, killer golden retriever, white dog with gray head. And of course there’s Truman, but he’s just plain meshuggah.
Jake also recognizes his friends, both human and animal. He loves his cat. And he’ll let other cats slide if I say, “That’s one of Ichi’s friends.” He loves his family. He loves the people he knew when he was a puppy - never forgets them. Oscar tells me they ran into Jamie at the park. Jamie was one of his counselors at puppy camp when he was just a little tiny thing. He jumped all over her. People thought he was killing her but he was kissing her. He adores her.
Jake still mourns the loss of his best friend, Daisy. He actually cries when I say her name. He loves Carly and Hector and Kia and Hannah and Ford and Winston. He gets excited when I say, “Your brother is coming and he’s bringing Hastur.”
Even cows make really close friends with other cows. BFFs for life. Horses do too, and they maintain a strict pecking order. Believe it or not, there are dorky horses and there are cool horses. Not only does a horse look dorky to us, he looks dorky to the other horses. Some horses are considered cool by the other horses and everyone in the herd wants to hang with him or her. My mare, Image, was the cool one. The other horses looked up to her. She was the boss mare. Even the biggest geldings deferred to her.
Elephants, whales, dolphins, the great apes — all have big brains and all seem to feel emotion in the way we conceive of human emotion. All these animals exhibit altruistic behavior, some use tools - so neither of those traits distinguish us as human. (Once upon a time the definition of a human being was a species that uses tools. No more. Even crows can use tools.)
Animals make themselves understood via verbal and nonverbal communication. So do we. Perhaps our means of verbal communication is more varied and complex. But the one difference?
The written word.
Does being human mean we write? Or does writing make us human? I suspect it’s the latter that made us modern humans.
I have this theory of the Biblical Garden of Eden. I’ve actually been there- in Northern Israel- Gan Edan- Banias. Seriously the Garden of Eden. Hiked there back when we still had to worry about Syrian landmines and there were no tourists anywhere.
Banias.
So here’s my theory. I’ve always believed that the Garden of Eden story is our genetic memory. It’s our way of describing what it was like before we were self-aware, before we became fully human. We didn’t know we were naked and we lived in harmony with our environment. Yup. Genetic memory of before the moment we ate that damn quince, persimmon, apple… and we became self-aware. Self-awareness comes at a cost. Ne’s pas?
But the written word… worth every penny.
What a thoughtful post. Thank you for sharing your observations. One only has to look into the eyes of an animal to see an intelligence, that is all too often overlooked by us humans. So much we don’t know.
Welcome, Diana. Well, we can write. Elephants can paint.
Loved this blog, Julia. But I can’t agree about dorky horses. They’re all magnificent.
Oh I love horses too, Sandra and dorky doesn’t mean I don’t like them. They can be outstanding horses. But they aren’t considered cool by the other horses. For example, on my daughter’s ranch, Black is cool. Finnegan is cool. Skittles is cool. They are the cool kids. The other horses are great workers but Black, Finnegan and Skittles think of them as dorks. You can tell what horses think of each other. They don’t try to hide it.
Very thoughtful post. I had a little 6 ounce ball of fluff once. A parakeet that I had for 13 very lucky years. He had more personality and more heart than some people I know. He was people with feathers. He knew my moods and was there when others were not. He was definitely people.
Interesting take on the Garden of Eden story. Don’t know if that is it or not. But I have no theories of my own so nothing to counter or discuss with you. If I have any thoughts at all, for me it is the story of imperfect beings….from the very beginning. Maybe you are on to something with that genetic idea. I some times wonder if evil is genetic.
I figure it’s a pretty accurate description, Roberta. The garden of Eden story definitely describes us before we were self-aware so it’s our memory of that time. Animals don’t care that they don’t wear clothes!
Oh birds are very smart! But they have no conscience. Our parrot will kiss us one minute and bite us the next. Birds are very narcissistic. Parakeets are a little nicer. With parrots it’s all about them.
Bark bark hsssssssss whinny whinny cheep cheep cheep rrrrrrooooooowwwwwwww tweet tweet aaaaawwwwwooooooo yip yip yip caw caw caw bark bark berk berk titter titter yap yap yap ribbit ribbit tweet!
Oh Ray… effective communication. Kinda sounds like my family…
Is it called ‘animality’ when an animal has it?
There is a spirit in the animals we love that somehow shows through their eyes - we are blessed. Even Gizzy, the chinchilla, can be charming when she offers me her paw as a response to getting her treat. There is a connection that we are privileged to have.
I like to think that it runs both ways, that we bring out something special in them, our little friends, when we make an effort. That their lives are enriched by knowing us aliens. Maybe it doesn’t compensate for freedom - how would they know? But we can make their lives more interesting.
And I’m not a pet person!
I agree, Alicia. There is a connection. I do think cats think we’re cats. And dogs think they are people. And horses and cows are happy to be horses and cows. They know themselves very well.
I think it’s called anthropomorphism - attributing human qualities to animals. I have no issue with anthropomorphizing.
I had a communications professor who said that communication, oral communication, is one reason we evolved as we did. Who knows. Hope you, Jake and Oscar are doing well.
I think Steph is correct, we did evolve because we could talk and communicate more effectively and look at the state of the planet because of that evolution. But you don’t need to be a genius to know, when you look at animals that while their communication skills may not be evolved as us, they aren’t near as nasty as us, in the main.
Great post
Well, that and cooking our food, Steph.
True, Tom. Aside from chimps- who can be pretty nasty.
I think how we relate to the animals around us tells others something about what kind of humans we are. Even if all we do is live and let live, it says we respect their place in our world. We’ve had an animal or two or three…
but have no pets now as we know we wouldn’t be able to give them the care and attention they need. But when we did have cats and dogs and hamsters…yeah, they definitely have feelings and expressed their joy when we came home from work…
Yes, it’s very true, Anny. Plus animals can’t lie - aside from some of the great apes.