The Sixth Sense - Animals.

[MoroDashi]

Somehow the animals are always the first to know. Wheather it's a hurricane or if your in danger. They know. But how? Do they have a special connection? Is this one or their features? Is this a purpose?

I find they also know how to cheer you up. -Cats especially <3- How do they know this? Is this the sixth sense? Can they read minds or something? I know they're not dumb, but this is something we can't get a handle on. Obviously, strong winds, hail warnings means a hurricane. But before those, if you don't know the animals warn you.

What are your views on this?

I feel that animals -pets mostly due to more experience.- have a special connection with humans. Sure you may not like a cat or a dog, but they cheer you up. They're meant to connect with you. The sixth sense - Connectivity. Like Bluetooth... But you need to press yes for your own good.

[blueangel06661]

Not sure how to exactly respond to this. But I do think animals are special in that sense. It's strange how they can feel emotions and many other elements that we cant automatically sense or believe that they can even sense.

I believe they do. Since most animals that don't like many people end up being attached to me automatically. I tend to carry around an aura that attracts them? And some nights I'll lay in bed feeling really bad and my cat will come join me. When he mostly sleeps elsewhere.

.....?

[_Freddie_]

I think there is a mutual understanding/respect between dogs and humans. There's evidence they were the first domesticated, or, tamed animals, as far back as 400,000 years ago. Back then, the dogs were laborers, used only for hunting. I doubt man felt they were anything more than tools. But, they helped us survive, and in return, after we advanced, they now benefit living the easy lives they have now, although, some still continue to have careers; hunting, seeing-eye dogs, police dogs, show-dogs, etc.

One of the more complex inter-species relationships for sure.

[JIMBO.]

you mean like how my cat freaks out when it hears the other cats out side but I dont hear a thing.

[Akihiko Yamamoto Hozagaki]

Well, you need to understand that other animals' (not us) senses can be a lot more keen than ours. Other animals tend feel emotions or "forces" that us humans cannot. While we may have the brain, they have the instincts and are much more in tune with the world around them. Another major factor that separates humans from a lot of other animals. However, we still resemble some of that behavior. Humans tend to get stressed when there is someone around them who is stressed. We feed off of each others emotions, and that's precisely what every other animal does.

It's really quite fascinating how that all happens.

[Diocletian]

I think of it more as "You believe what you wanna believe". Your dog might be thinking, "Oh, shut up" but you think it's sayng to stop crying. It's more of your connection, then theirs, but I see where you're coming from. My dog can sense gun shots pretty quick and barks beforehand.

[Panic_Attack]

They hav secret connections with god!
They understand the natures lanuage!
They can fortell the future!

[Eris]

Animals sensing a blue mood: In at least cats, looking at an individual is a challenge (while blinking and looking away is a submissive gesture). If you stare at a cat, you're basically telling it you're gonna beat the crap out of it if it dares come close. If you are sad, you are unlikely to make eye contact with anyone, thus the cat feels it's a good time to be up close and cuddly. People who are allergic to cats, or afraid of them also avoid eye contact with cats, which is why cats are attracted to them like magnets.

Animals sensing a disaster: Many animals have a great hearing. They can hear more frequencies than we do, and they hear more quiet sounds as well. Some can also sense vibrations in the ground with their feet very well.

[DOOM!]

Cats sensing Money: If you ever gave a dollar bill to your cat, it'll cuddle it, and lick it, and sleep on it, and hiss on you if you get close to their money. That's because that dollar bill was passed through a hundred hands before it reached your cat, thus having a least a hundred odors from different people's hands embed in it, and a hundred foul odors is just what cats like.

[Rubedo, the Crystal Blood]

The irony of an Animal Behaviorist owning is that Behaviorists don't feel animals are sentient. It's all mechanical, an instinct to survive. The ability to empathize would be explained as appeasement to one's master. The animal recognizes that its owner provides food, shelter, comfort, and safety. So the animal should appease it's owner to assure continued providence.

The eye contact factor is also a Behaviorist argument.

In any event, my cat Silver (deceased) loved to snuggle with sleepers. He also ALWAYS got into a room you THOUGHT was locked. I found out he was climbing through a hole in the floor tiling (we have partial subtiles on our ceiling). I'd always wake up with him sitting on my stomach, in my lap, or wrapped in my arm. Poor guy had to be euthanized.

[Ai no nai]

They totally do. Whenever i get hurt or have wounds from training my dog knows where it is and licks it.(its said their saliva has high healing properties.)She is able to find my wounds quick.
Animals senses are very high so they can tell whats going on.

[Eris]

The irony of an Animal Behaviorist owning is that Behaviorists don't feel animals are sentient. It's all mechanical, an instinct to survive. The ability to empathize would be explained as appeasement to one's master. The animal recognizes that its owner provides food, shelter, comfort, and safety. So the animal should appease it's owner to assure continued providence.

The eye contact factor is also a Behaviorist argument.

I think it is a silly notion that say cats would have the same range of emotions that humans do. They come from a completely different genetic history. In the end, they are hunter predators that tends to loosely associate in packs. They would have evolved emotions that make sense to a predator. Humans aren't pack animals the same way cats and dogs are, and humans are gatherers and foragers that have learned to hunt, instead of specialized hunter predators. We might touch base on a few very basic emotions like fear and satisfaction, but it is highly questionable whether cats can be jealous or mourn loss.

From that sense, it is highly questionable whether animals like cats and dogs can truly empathize with humans. Furthermore, even if they had the exact range of emotions, they have another body language and communicate with pheromones in an extent humans don't. So the message would still probably be lost in translation.

[Rubedo, the Crystal Blood]

So cats lack emotions humans have?

I think of jealousy of a sentimental object or being as loyalty, anger, and a self-defense instinct.

So cat's can't be jealous, in your opinion. Are you say that they are (a) incapable of being individually loyal, angry, or stimulated to defend themselves, or are you saying (b) that they are incapable of feeling these things together in the sense of what human beings consider as "jealousy"?

I'm convinced that dogs and cats can empathize with humans, just as much as humans can empathize with any other animal. If you ask me, human beings are stupider. Animals can empathize with each other, even across different species, but men are still trying to figure out what women really want.

The notion that animal empathy is a silly notion is a silly notion. Behaviorists work off of the same evidence that pet owners everywhere in the world operate on: observation.

The average person observes a dog playing fetch with a child and can think, "Hmm, that dog sure looks happy."

The behaviorist can observe the same thing and deduce that "the child is, to the dog, the pack leader. It chases a thrown object as a natural result of its hunting capacities, and returns its prey to the pack leader."

I'm not encompassing the whole of the sphere, but I think it's safe to say neither side is 100% confirmed.

[Eris]

I think of jealousy of a sentimental object or being as loyalty, anger, and a self-defense instinct.

So cat's can't be jealous, in your opinion. Are you say that they are (a) incapable of being individually loyal, angry, or stimulated to defend themselves, or are you saying (b) that they are incapable of feeling these things together in the sense of what human beings consider as "jealousy"?


Jealousy doesn't make sense in a predator. It is too abstract. Jealousy encourages self-improvement, which requires planning. The ability to make and execute plans makes sense if you can use tools (in fact, the two go hand in hand) and has indeed has only been observed in some primates, animals that can use tools.


I'm convinced that dogs and cats can empathize with humans, just as much as humans can empathize with any other animal. If you ask me, human beings are stupider. Animals can empathize with each other, even across different species, but men are still trying to figure out what women really want.

I disagree with the idea that humans can empathize with animals. At least to the extent humans think they can. In most cases, it's a matter of the human projecting a feeling on the animal, and acting upon it. Afterwards, the human projects gratitude on the animal, and feels it has done it a favor. This is supported by the fact that some humans also seem to feel that everything from insects to plants have emotions.


The notion that animal empathy is a silly notion is a silly notion. Behaviorists work off of the same evidence that pet owners everywhere in the world operate on: observation.

The average person observes a dog playing fetch with a child and can think, "Hmm, that dog sure looks happy."

The behaviorist can observe the same thing and deduce that "the child is, to the dog, the pack leader. It chases a thrown object as a natural result of its hunting capacities, and returns its prey to the pack leader."

I'm walking the middle road (I'm not really a behaviorist). I say the dog is experiencing a form of happiness that makes all the sense in the world. It has caught it's prey. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense to reward such an action with a good feeling, call it happiness or satisfaction, since it will help the species survive.

[Rubedo, the Crystal Blood]

It's natural for humans to project. They try to view or edit their own view of something to make it more satisfactory, something that suits their needs better.

Dogs do that too. They treat their masters as pack leaders. When there is a clear hierarchy, they act as a dog ought to in the while. But a dog knows the difference between a dog and a human. It is conscious of the fact that humans are not dogs, and that dogs are not humans. I'm not saying a dog thinks of itself as the word "dog", but it knows, unless you've raised the dog without other dogs, desensitizing its distinction, and even then the animal will eventually figure it out on its own.

So why do dogs treat families as a pack then? When someone comes to the front door, a dog will bark threateningly, or perhaps even as a greeting. But it's still a warning to the intruder that they're stepping onto the dog's owner's property. If someone attacks the master, the pack leader, the dog will defend his or her leader as he would in a normal pack, were he not the leader.

Cats don't necessarily follow this process because they are solitary animals, but a particularly loyal cat will recognize its master, follow its master and, if it's loyal and tempered enough, defend its master, however it has to, though it's very rare.

Wolves are the same way. If they're similar to dogs, then why can't we tame wolves? Because they are, by nature, rather solitary animals, even if they act in a pack.

Ultimately humans act for their own survival as well (excluding suicidal ones).

[Eris]

It's natural for humans to project. They try to view or edit their own view of something to make it more satisfactory, something that suits their needs better.

Dogs do that too. They treat their masters as pack leaders. When there is a clear hierarchy, they act as a dog ought to in the while. But a dog knows the difference between a dog and a human. It is conscious of the fact that humans are not dogs, and that dogs are not humans. I'm not saying a dog thinks of itself as the word "dog", but it knows, unless you've raised the dog without other dogs, desensitizing its distinction, and even then the animal will eventually figure it out on its own.

So why do dogs treat families as a pack then? When someone comes to the front door, a dog will bark threateningly, or perhaps even as a greeting. But it's still a warning to the intruder that they're stepping onto the dog's owner's property. If someone attacks the master, the pack leader, the dog will defend his or her leader as he would in a normal pack, were he not the leader.

I largely agree with this.


Cats don't necessarily follow this process because they are solitary animals, but a particularly loyal cat will recognize its master, follow its master and, if it's loyal and tempered enough, defend its master, however it has to, though it's very rare.

Cats are social animals, but they aren't strictly pack animals like dogs with clear and well defined roles. Stray cats often form communities that live together.


Wolves are the same way. If they're similar to dogs, then why can't we tame wolves? Because they are, by nature, rather solitary animals, even if they act in a pack.

Dogs are descendants of tamed wolves. It is more apparent in some breeds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Malamute) than others (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chihuahua_(dog)).

[3pleT]

Wolves are the same way. If they're similar to dogs, then why can't we tame wolves? Because they are, by nature, rather solitary animals, even if they act in a pack.
first of all, forget the red riding hood. if you find a real-life lone wolf, you can consider yourself lucky. and wolves can be tamed. it's believed that humans tamed the first pack of wolves that was attracted to their food scraps and after many generations they lost some of their predatory instincts and their anatomy changed. (therefore, they became dogs)


Cats don't necessarily follow this process because they are solitary animals, but a particularly loyal cat will recognize its master, follow its master and, if it's loyal and tempered enough, defend its master, however it has to, though it's very rare.
wildcats are solitary animals and tamed wildcats won't exactly follow their master, but they will return for food and defend him if he's attacked in their presence (from my own experience :cool:). house cats are different. by behavior, they are basically large kittens and their master is their mother.