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What Do Animals Think?

Coal said:
Just watched this. A little light on facts and an uncomfortable feeling that raising a gorilla as a person left it unable to be either a gorilla or a person. Not sure what I feel about that at the moment.
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I think I'd agree with that summary.
 
Barbet Schroeder directed a documentary about Koko in the 1970s which was quite revealing. Made the creature come across like a huge, hairy parrot.
 
Duck cheers up dog who was depressed for two years after his best friend died
Posted 6 hours ago by Joe Vesey-Byrne

Do you like dogs? Do you like ducks? You'll love this story about a duck who befriended a sad dog.

Jacqui Litton, based in Corryton, Tennessee, has a dog named George.
George has been sad and mopey ever since his best friend, a Labrador called 'Blackie' died in 2014. On the anniversary of Blackie's death, a duck wandered onto the Litton's property. According to Litton, the duck seemed to be trying to comfort sad George.

Maybe this camaraderie explains why there are so many pubs called the 'Dog and Duck'.

In a post to Facebook, Litton explained more about George, Blackie and the duck.

"They had been together for 12 years. George has been heart broken and has grieved with anxiety so bad that he has almost died twice. We have no idea where this duck came from but he sure does love George and since the duck has arrived George has not cried one time."

etc...

http://indy100.independent.co.uk/ar...source=indy&utm_medium=top5&utm_campaign=i100

Video and pics on page.
 
I remember once walking around with my pet rat 'Rat' on my shoulder when he stood bolt upright and stared through the window straight at the full Moon.

It looked for all the world like he was thinking "WTF is THAT?"

He liked to go through people's pockets looking for Rizlas. Loved his Rizlas, did Rat! :)
 
Horses can communicate with us - scientists
By Helen Briggs BBC News

Horses have joined a select group of animals that can communicate by pointing at symbols.

Scientists trained horses, by offering slices of carrot as an incentive, to touch a board with their muzzle to indicate if they wanted to wear a rug.
The horses' requests matched the weather, suggesting it wasn't a random choice.

A few other animals, including apes and dolphins, appear, like us, to express preferences by pointing at things.

Dr Cecilie Mejdell of the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, who led the research, said they wanted to find a way to ask the horse whether or not it liked wearing a blanket.
In Nordic countries, it is common for horses to wear a blanket in all weathers.

"I think our study adds to the knowledge on horse cognition - about what horses are able to learn and how they think," she told BBC News.
"Horses are often considered to be not very intelligent but this shows that using the right methods they can actually communicate and express their opinions and they can take choices that seem sensible to us even."

Horse whisperers
The scientists worked with a horse trainer to teach 23 horses of various breeds how to communicate with humans.

  • First the horse was trained to approach a board hung on a fence and touch it with its muzzle
  • Then, it was taught to tell the difference between different symbols on the board - blanket on (horizontal bar), blanket off (vertical bar) and no change (blank)
  • Finally, the horse was taught to associate a particular action with the symbols on the board
  • By the end of the training, a horse was able to signal if it was too cold or too hot by going up to the appropriate board and asking for its rug to be put on or taken off
Horses requested a blanket in wet, windy and cold weather, but went without when the weather was sunny, say the researchers.
This shows the horse was making a choice based on its own motivation, not that of its trainer, they explain.
The whole process took place over two weeks with 10 to 15 minutes of training a day.

The scientists hope that other researchers will use their method to ask horses more questions.
They also think ordinary horse owners will be able to train their horses in this way.

Karen McComb, professor of animal behaviour and cognition at the University of Sussex, said the training method would be useful in animal welfare.
"This is a really interesting and innovative study that has conceived a very novel way of getting at what is going on in the mind of the horse," she said.

While communication with cats and dogs is the subject of much research, other domestic animals have been somewhat ignored.
Earlier this year, UK researchers said horses were able to discriminate between happy and angry human facial expressions.
The scientists say domestication may have enabled horses to understand human behaviour.

The study is published in the journal, Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37450952
 
rynner2 said:
Horses have joined a select group of animals that can communicate by pointing at symbols.
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Scientists may be catching up with something which was common knowledge to circus-performers and novelty acts way back.
If they could catch up with Mr Ed. and teach them to talk, we would be getting somewhere! :huh:
 
Mother monkey appears to cry out after her son collapses
Telegraph Reporters
10 May 2017 • 12:06pm

A monkey appeared to cry out in worry after her son collapsed.

However, her stress was unwarranted; the baby monkey had just tripped over and was soon back up on its feet.
The mother was photographed in Jabalphur, India, by 31-year-old Avinash Lodhi.
Ms Avinash said: "This picture is very close to my heart because throughout my entire photography career I have never seen anything like this.
"It was so quick I didn't even know what was happening when I took the picture but as soon as I confirmed the image I was silent for an hour.
"This moment is rare, especially with animals."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/10/mother-monkey-appears-cry-son-collapses/
 
One controversial aspect of animal thinking / intelligence is self-recognition - e.g., the abstract capacity needed to recognize an image in a mirror is oneself. If the research reported here holds up, it would seem dolphins achieve such self-recognition faster than human babies.

Dolphins Show Self-Recognition Earlier Than Children
Humans, chimpanzees, elephants, magpies and bottle-nosed dolphins can recognize themselves in a mirror, according to scientific reports, although as any human past age 50 knows, that first glance in the morning may yield ambiguous results.

Not to worry. Scientists are talking about species-wide abilities, not the fact that one’s father or mother makes unpredictable appearances in the looking glass.

Mirror self-recognition, at least after noon, is often taken as a measure of a kind of intelligence and self-awareness, although not all scientists agree. And researchers have wondered not only about which species display this ability, but about when it emerges during early development.

Children start showing signs of self-recognition at about 12 months at the earliest and chimpanzees at two years old. But dolphins, researchers reported Wednesday, start mugging for the mirror as early as seven months, earlier than humans.

Diana Reiss a psychologist at Hunter College, and Rachel Morrison, then a graduate student working with Reiss, studied two young dolphins over three years at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. ...
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FULL STORY (With links to research publications ... ): https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/science/dolphins-self-recognition.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
 
"The female cat who lives with us now imitates human actions"

Mine too. I was sitting at my desk at home yesterday, typing something on my computer, when Puss jumped onto my lap. After walking around a couple of times (as cats do) she settled down facing the computer. I carried on typing and Puss stretched her paws out and put them on the keyboard, clearly emulating my actions.
 
our youngest cat "Missie" often sits with me watching what im doing on the computer, quite often joining in with pressing the keys! a lot of the time she presses them in a certain way, which then does things that i have no idea what it means or how to correct it! The bloody cat is better with computers than me.....
Another of our cats "Charlie" often sits in front of our full length bedroom mirror watching you (me) while i get dressed in the morning. i usually pull funny faces at him through the mirror just to see if he is really watching me and he always responds - his ears turn and his eyes change - he knows its me because he always turns around as if to see if my face does look like that in the magic window..
We also had a dog "jack" who would often watch intently while my wife was getting dressed, she regularly said he was making her uncomfortable looking her up and down... what was he really thinking? it does make you wonder
 
"Why am I rolling on my back and sticking my legs in the air for this strange smelling creature? Oh, yes. It might give me food, saving all that tedious hunting".

Mind you, I suppose that could be said of some humans.
 
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ln a discussion of animal thought processes, l once heard animals described as being like much like Frenchmen (with due apologies to any French members of FTMB): They display one of only three potential responses to an encounter with any unfamiliar stimulus:

a) Can l eat it?

b) Can l shag it?

c) Do l have to run away from it?

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
ln a discussion of animal thought processes, l once heard animals described as being like much like Frenchmen (with due apologies to any French members of FTMB): They display one of only three potential responses to an encounter with any unfamiliar stimulus:

a) Can l eat it?

b) Can l shag it?

c) Do l have to run away from it?

maximus otter
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That's also our Cromer Town motto ..
 
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