Quote:
Originally Posted by funchy  Some animals learn by mimicking others, not by direct training. |
This is very true. Sometimes my dog gets eczema, which makes him want to scratch. Recently I was looking after another friend's dog, during which time my dog had an outbreak. After a couple of days, my friend's dog started scratching too, which confused me, because it's not like eczema is catching. I kept checking him, and he didn't have anything wrong that would make him scratch (fleas, dry skin, etc).
Then I realised my friend's dog wasn't really scratching. He was more just going through the motions. Finally (I'm not too bright) I worked out that he was mimicking my dog, because when my dog scratches, usually I will gently stop his paw, and pat him for a moment to distract him while the itch subsides. My friend's dog saw that my dog was getting attention and a pat every time he scratched, so he pretended to scratch too, to get attention for himself.
That's a pretty fast learning curve for a little dog, to mimic another dog's behaviour in order to get attention from a third party!
I could give lots of other examples but this is already a rather long-winded way to explain that I think animals function with much higher desire and concept processing than we usually give them credit for – mostly because we just don't spend that much time observing them. I bet you'd see cows and rabbits and chickens and pigs all do some pretty clever and funny things once you started paying attention to them. And because I couldn't imagine turning my dog – a sentient being with the ability to surprise me, learn, show desire, affection and other emotions – into a kebab, I decided to extend the same courtesy to other animals that I haven't had the privilege of spending one-on-one time with.