(175) Intelegent Animals and Smart Dogs

I just finished reading the August 16th edition of TIME magazine. This is the edition with the cover story of animal intelligence, titled, “What Animals Think”. The cover story was written by veteran Times writer Jeffery Kluger. An interview with Kluger can be seen on the Charlie Rose Show or on line at: http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/1671

I read the article and I watched the video interview and was impressed by three aspects of this article. I encourage you to read the article as well as watch the video because it is certainly thought provoking to think about what intelligence means as related to a continuum of animals other than humans. I certainly believe that my dog, Beeker is intelligent. Others would say that only human beings exhibit intelligence, and other animals are void of thought and consciousness, therefore not feeling of pain or suffering. This article and interview make a distinction between Animals ability to abstract thought and skills such as same and different. The primates showcased in this article are the Bonobos living in the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa (who knew that the corn state could be famous for something other than corn?). A special Ape, Kanzi has learned not only to communicate using a language of 384 words, but is also able to formulate additional thoughts and words by combining and expressing himself with a large touch board of learned expressions and words. The interesting thing to me is that Kanzi was raised from birth being taught language like a mother teaches her baby language by talking to him although the baby will not respond but is learning by listening and forming relationships between spoken words and visual cues.

Also interesting is the Theory of Mind. Human children believe that they have universal knowledge until they are about three years old. For instance, A child who witnesses a person coming into a room and hiding a toy will believe that anyone else coming into the room will know where that toy is hiden since the child knows where it is hidden. The research has shown that Great apes as well as blue Jays also have this understanding. Research has also shown that many species are conscious of past, present, and future. Some animals have the ability to think on a higher level. Take dogs for instance. They have the ability to think in the abstract when they look to their caretakers and follow the pointed finger not just look at the finger that is pointing. This thinking developed from dogs’ historical life with humans over time, but still shows that dogs are able to think with forethought. Blue Jays will hide food and if the Blue Jay sees that it is being watched it will rebury the food when the watcher leaves. This takes thought and knowledge of “other” and presence in time.

What I believe is evident from just this article is that our human language superiority has missed the true complex ability of the animal world to communicate. Just suppose that all other animals were able to “speak"(communicate)to each other and it were just us humans who spoke another language. Suppose that we were just missing the boat by not being able to “speak”(communicate)the same language of animals. Therefore, the Great Ape Trust experiments are really bridging the language gap for humans more than for animals. Doctor Dolittle keeps coming to mind. In the end the understanding that most animals have consciousness, thoughts, feelings, language, and presence in the world really came home to me. Our human superiority is sometimes detrimental to the clear understanding of other beings.