Animal Soulstice
http://animalsoulstice.com
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Can Animals Reason?
My first dog, Jack, came into this world with one of his first experiences being kicked around a football pitch by two obviously disturbed boys. When my mum and I discovered him at Battersea Dogs Home I was eight years old, he couldn't have been more than three months old. He had already been operated on, yet despite further operations over the years he never fully recovered. He was a very strong minded dog, being a Jack Russell, but over the fourteen years of his life he never did like boys. So, did he reason with himself that they were all tied to the same brush? I cannot say for sure, but that experience never left him. I have heard behaviourists say that dogs do not hold on to memories, which having lived with a variety of non-human animals I would disagree with. How can a human possibly perceive the dynamics of an animals' mind having never been one (well of that type, anyway!) We can study them, sure, but it reminds me of professionals who write informatively on say an illness, and however useful it is will still not match with one who has actually experienced it. Such is that with a non-human animal.
Perhaps they do not go so far as to analyse the pain humans inflict upon them, but their behaviour indicates that they will always remain weary of it happening again. I adopted a rescue dog, Willow, a year and a half ago and she still cowers even if I drop something. It is a long process to recovery, she still finds it hard being around other dogs after having to fight with them for a share of the food, I sometimes wonder if she will ever fully recover. And what about farm animals? Does a cow know that the milk being stolen from its udder was meant for its calf as it stands trapped in its pen? Or the sheep that is separated from its lamb, why is it crying out for it, is it love, or just plain instinct? Like a mother for her baby ...
Of course, we are all instinctive, whether it be to survive, protect or nurture. But to suggest that a non-human animal has no mental attributes beyond this does not make sense. Because they do not use a complex language system such as ours does not mean that they have none at all. You only have to look at songbirds, they learn vocalisations in the same way we do a language. According to Dr Eric Jarvis as stated in the National Wildlife Magazine, a songbird will "learn to sing in much like human infants learn to speak."
I also came across an interesting article on GoVeg.com in which they write about the intelligence of pigs. The article states "Professor Stanley Curtis of Penn State University found that pigs play and excel at joystick-controlled video games. He observed that they are “capable of abstract representation” and “are able to hold an icon in the mind and remember it at a later date.” Professor Curtis says that “there is much more going on in terms of thinking and observing by these pigs than we would ever have guessed.” Pigs are much smarter than dogs, according to the research, and even did better at video games than some primates. Says Dr. Sarah Boysen, Curtis’ colleague, “[Pigs] are able to focus with an intensity I have never seen in a chimp.”" So doesn't this take reasoning?
All this attitude serves to do is give humans an illusion of grandeur, when in fact if we have so many more attributes than a non-human animal then why is it we act so much worse than they do! If we are so much more aware then shame on us! I guess it is easier for those that eat them, to see them as nothing more than flesh and meat makes it more digestable when they are basically eating a thinking, feeling, bonding life that deserves more than to be dressed in garnish with a side salad!