Author: Anant V Joshi DVM
From making a straight eye contact to blinking an eye, from perking up their ears to wagging their tails, from crouching on the ground to laying belly up, from whining to growling, from a straight down hair coat to standing hairs, they are trying to communicate a thousand emotions.
From reading our posture to responding to our pace, from listening to our heart beats to smelling our sweat, from licking our hands to tugging on our slacks: they are listening to our bodies' intended and unintended messages and responding appropriately. And when we fail to respond to them in their 'language', they get confused, frustrated, angry, anxious, sad, depressed and un-attached.
Imagine living in a place where people did not understand 90% of what you said ... let us say it was a language barrier. We have the same situation here ... our animals may be thinking that we humans do not really understand them. This is sad.
I believe it is our moral and ethical responsibility to try and learn the 'Animal Language'. Nay, we should learn their language because we love them. Without communicating with them, what is our love's worth for them?
Anant V Joshi DVM
The opinions and ideas in this blog are mine.
Following photo taken from the internet. Credits were not available.
This is Leo, my Siberian Husky. He is 1 year old in this picture.
Today, we are going to explore briefly how humans can communicate with animals in a more efficient way.
Today, we are going to explore briefly how humans can communicate with animals in a more efficient way.
They say man has 5 senses: Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, and Smell. Really? Some claim they have a sixth sense. The intuition. They seem to know the future. They seem to have the sense to see the past: things that happened in the past ... things that were so far removed in space and time from them that there is no logical explanation of how these individuals with a sixth sense could have known it.
The social animal Homo sapiens
has 5 senses, which are the information gathering gadgets
. The brain processes the information and we make some sense of the world around us. There are millions of inputs in our brain at any given moment. Our brain is a sensitive instrument ... it is able to process these inputs brought to it by its data gathering friends, the 5 senses.
One would presume that the brain would be limited by its own capacity to process information, as well as by the capacity of its data gathering friends, the 5 senses. So the more sensitive the brain is, and the more efficient the senses are, the more accurate the outcome should be of this whole exercise involving the interplay of senses and the brain. This is pretty advanced in Homo sapiens. Probably more so than in other animals.
Humans and animals are made up of the same stuff: 70% water, bones, ligaments, muscles and skin. We have similar cells, tissues, blood, lymph, bones, and the same vital organs. Our cells and our genes are so similar, that scientists regularly inject human brain cells into mice brains to see how those injected cells thrive and behave.
Having been in private practice of veterinary medicine for more than 2 decades, I run into a lot of animal lovers. This is a very satisfying profession. Most people are kind-hearted, love their animals, and will do anything to save even a stray animal.
Some people sleep with their animals, some share the food from the same plate. Some hunt with their animals. The degree of sharing between animals and humans is really baffling. Everybody is different, and everybody has a right to express their love in the way they think is most appropriate for their family and their animal companions. We are not going to judge anybody. We love the human-animal bond.
One thing that I believe in is that we should not humanize the animals, nor should we think of humans as animals. Yes, animals and humans are eventually all animals: as my blog says ... Domestic, Wild and Social. But it is a great idea to keep the distinction in the back of our minds. I was very sad to see some TV programs where kindhearted people got killed or mauled by their own wild animals. The program is called Fatal Animal Attraction or something like that. See, wild animals are very cute, beautiful, and furry. That does not mean that they do not have millions of years of selective breeding in them to make them furious hunters. That’s how they survive ... by hunting prey. One never knows for sure when a "tamed" wild animal will erupt into his original personality of a hunter.
We have all seen rowdy kids! We love them and all, at the same time we worry that a rowdy kid is going to get in trouble, is going to get hurt, or just is going to tick a neighbor or a guest off! Our dogs are like our kids. If we do not train them to behave, then they cannot be blamed for social transgressions. Just like every human kid goes to school, I think every pet dog needs to go to a boarding-training school where he will stay for a couple of weeks getting to learn all basic commands. Then of course the humans can take over and continue the life long training and learning process.
Well that’s it for today talking about wild and domestic animals!
The social animal, the Homo sapiens
is a different beast altogether. He is very complex, egotistical, as well as of course kind and compassionate at the same time. The problem with him is that he thinks that the whole world is here for his enjoyment, and he can do whatever suits his fancy and ephemeral needs: he can destroy the eco system, pollute the rivers and oceans and the atmosphere, and drive out other animals from their natural habitats … animals that are at this stage of the evolution a little weaker than the humans. The good part is that a vast majority of this animal species, Homo sapiens
, is kind hearted and is trying to save the endangered species, heal the hurt animals, and is trying to find natural habitat for displaced animals. That's a good thing we are doing!
Dr. Anant V Joshi DVM
