Opinion: When dogs recall toys, and horses plan ahead, are animals so different from us?

[Judi Lynn]

When dogs recall toys, and horses plan ahead, are animals so different from us?
Martha Gill

We’re warned not to assign human qualities to other species, but evidence of their complex abilities is mounting

Sat 7 Sep 2024 12.00 EDT
Last modified on Sat 7 Sep 2024 16.08 EDT

The details differ, but really it’s the same story, turning up every few weeks, for around a decade now. The revelation – and it’s always presented with a dramatic flourish – is this: animals are much more like us than we thought.

Last week, it was that dogs could remember the names of their old toys – even when they hadn’t seen them for two years. Language acquisition, that “uniquely human” thing, was being encroached on, the researchers said: dogs could store words in their memory. Last month, it was that horses could strategise and plan ahead, overturning the assumption that they “simply respond to stimuli in the moment”. And in April, it was that there’s a “realistic possibility of consciousness” in reptiles, fish and even insects – according to a declaration signed by some 40 scientists. One of the studies backing the claims recorded bumblebees playing with wooden balls. The behaviour had no obvious connection to mating or survival, the authors thought. It was for fun.

The mental territory we can claim to be “uniquely human” is shrinking at an alarming rate. Wasps can distinguish faces, dolphins call one another by name, pigs use tools, zebra finches dream, parrots go on Zoom, and sometimes crayfish get anxious. Chimps, meanwhile, exist in complex cultures, rather like ours, with fashion trends. In one recorded instance, a high-ranking female chimp started wearing grass in her ears. Within a week, all the female chimps were doing it.

Does this seem obvious? It did to Darwin, who, along with other naturalists, once assumed that animals, like us, were individuals with some form of consciousness. “Can we feel sure that an old dog with an excellent memory and some power of imagination, as shewn by his dreams, never reflects on his past pleasures of the chase?” he wrote in The Descent of Man.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/07/when-dogs-recall-toys-and-horses-plan-ahead-are-animals-so-different-from-us

[wnylib]

1. I'm sure that the pet owners here on DU can give anecdotal accounts

of their dogs, cats, birds and other animals showing more intelligence and emotions than people give animals credit for.

Plus, YouTube and other online sites are full of videos showing animals using problem solving strategies and having affectionate interactions with people and other animals.

[Irish_Dem]

4. My anecdotal account: My dogs planning/working together like Bonnie and Clyde.

I once had a small Bichon Frise dog (Poodle like dog) and a large Golden Retriever.
Sweetest and best dogs you can imagine. Not a bad bone in their entire bodies.
Or so I thought.

I lived in a house with a 6 foot wooden privacy fence all around the backyard.
The neighbors' backyards could not be seen.

One day my little white Bichon comes into the house carrying a ripe tomato in her mouth,
obviously quite proud and happy with herself.

I was not growing tomatoes in the backyard, and did not have tomatoes in the house that day.
However, my neighbor was growing tomatoes in his backyard.
I thought maybe he had thrown a tomato into my yard.

When the Bichon kept bringing tomatoes into the house, I was ready to go speak to my neighbor
and ask him to stop throwing tomatoes over the fence.

Before I could do that, I saw for myself what was happening. I witnessed the large Golden Retriever
digging a big hole under the fence right near my neighbor's tomato patch. The Bichon stands next
to the Golden as she digs the hole. Once the hole is big enough, the little dog goes under the fence
to steal the tomatoes. She goes in twice to get two tomatoes, one goes to the Golden, the other to herself.

So I personally saw my two dogs do a Bonnie and Clyde break in and robbery. Planning and working together.
Then dividing up the loot.

I covered the hole with dirt, but the crime spree continued. I had to put rocks in that spot to stop them.
I also lectured them about the crime of robbery but that didn't seem to impress them.

[wnylib]

6. Cooperative strategizing. Impressive, creative, and helpful. Here, mom. Got a tomato for you..

Last edited Sat Sep 21, 2024, 08:59 PM - Edit history (3)

I have loved watching my pets over the years resolving problems, figuring out how to get what they want, and showing affection or hostility to people.

I once had a border collie whose breed is known for their intelligence. Too many amazing incidents to list here, all of them par for the course for border collies, I've learned.

I used to have a solid black, long haired cat named Merlin. He acted like my chaperone when I was dating. When guys took me home in the evening, they always made a fuss over Merlin, mostly trying to impress me it seemed. But Merlin was immune to pretentious overtures. If he didn't like or trust a guy, he slapped or bit the guy's hand when being petted. If he liked them, he rubbed against their legs. He was usually
right so I trusted his judgement.

My current cat, Ember, has gone beyond anything I've observed in previous cats. Since apartment rules allow only one 4 footed pet, I got Ember a stuffed cat (Fluffy) for company, slightly larger than her when she was just 3 months old. She dragged Fluffy everywhere.

But when Ember was 6 months old, her serious hunting instincts kicked in and she started treating Fluffy as prey. She practiced stalking, pouncing, and neck snapping on Fluffy. What amazed me was how calculated she was about it. She would place Fluffy behind a foot stool, walk away, and then turn back, belly crawling, to sneak around the foot stool and suddenly pounce on Fluffy's neck. The snapping jerk she gave to the neck was cringeworthy. She was so calculating that sometimes after putting Fluffy in place, she would go back to readjust the placement before proceeding with the hunt routine.

At 4 months old, she figured out that it was the masking tape I put over my lower cupboard doors that prevented her from opening them. She clawed a piece of tape loose, tore it off with her mouth, and opened the cupboard door.

She likes playing with pipe cleaners. She would place one in front of my bedroom door, then go to the other side to grope with her paw under the door to pull the pipe cleaner to her side of the door. If it didn't line up well enough to pull it through, she went back to adjust the placement and then proceeded to pull it under the door.

By accident, Ember learned that, if the pipe cleaner was bent and crumpled enough, it would catch on the door and the door would move with the pipe cleaner as she pulled it through. She then started doing that deliberately and peeking out at me through the crack in the almost closed door.

But the most surprising thing I saw her do was to show empathy to me after she accidentally drew blood while playing. She liked rushing out from her tunnel to ambush my legs when I walked by. One day I was wearing capris and loafers with no socks. Her claw caught an ankle vein which bled quite a lot, down into my shoe. She looked stunned and concerned when she saw the blood. I hobbled to the bathroom to clean up and put on a Band Aid. Ember watched from the doorway, eyes wide, then sniffed the Band Aid when I finished.

She hid in her tunnel. I watched a movie. When I walked by the tunnel an hour later to get a snack, Ember rushed out, then stopped suddenly. Instead of a full on ambush, she gently tapped my leg, with her claws pulled in.

That was 5 years ago. She has never ambushed me again. The blood that one day made her realize that playing too roughly could hurt me.

[Irish_Dem]

7. Amazing display of planning, strategizing, and empathy.

Higher level cognitive and emotional IQ.

We don't usually associate these with animals.

[wnylib]

8. I told her vet how surprised I was by the calculating moves when Ember

stalked Fluffy. The vet said that felines in general, whether domestic or wild, can be very calculating on the hunt. But Ember was play acting, not actually hunting, and she used planning to set up her games. It was like watching an imaginative human child playing make believe.

Ember is 1/4 Egyptian Mau. She does not have the Mau's spotted coat pattern, but she does have the body shape and many of the behavioral traits of a Mau. Their breed description says that, although they love the stimulation and company of interactive play, they also create their own games to entertain themselves.

She has one trait that is exclusive to Mau cats, called the "wiggle tail" in breed descriptions. When anticipating something that they really like, they raise their tail up and it vibrates from the base to the tip. It's as if their excitement is just too much to contain and they have to let it out somehow. Ember does this when anticipating interactive play with a favorite toy and also when anticipating food that she really loves. I usually give her dry kibble, but sometimes switch to canned Fancy Feast. Her favorite Fancy Feast flavor is a tuna/shrimp mix. The minute she gets a whiff when the can is opened, that tail starts vibrating.

So, since some traits of intelligence and emotional behavior are in the breed descriptions of dogs, cats, and birds, I wonder why people (including me) get surprised when animals show intelligence and emotional capacity. Are we just so accustomed to thinking of humans as the ultimate in smarts that we assume that animals lack those qualities?

[Irish_Dem]

9. Yes it was not actual hunting, it was training or entertaining herself.

The way she adjusted things in certain ways show us she knew she was play acting.
And training herself in certain ways. Yes it was planning.

Yes it is quite creative. Like an author writing a stage play and then the actors acting out the play.

Yes the endorphins are flowing in her brain to the point the tail vibrates when happy or excited.

Yes I think it is human arrogance. We keep being surprised when animals show social skills and
intelligence. Just because they are not verbal humans doesn't mean they don't communicate, plan,
have cognitive ability, play, create, etc.

I think in the future, humans are going to understand much more about the social, emotional, cognitive IQ
of animals and be astounded. We may be somewhat ashamed we undervalued them.
And treated them so badly.

[Walleye]

2. We know dogs and cats dream when they sleep. We've seen it.

That’s why I think when human dreams are being interpreted, It’s probably just a lot of BS. When the dog chases the rabbit in his sleep.

[Irish_Dem]

3. We keep finding out animals are smarter than we realized.

And also that they bond and communicate with each other.

[cachukis]

5. Humanity did not begin with humans.

[electric_blue68]

10. I found the Bumblebee vid. Adorable!