Animal-man communication

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There is something mysterious in what an animal tries to tell you. Everyone who has had a cat or a dog knows that you tell them something and that they tell you something. With effort: not always they understand us, not always we understand them. Some time you have to make guesses and try to map a mind different from yours. A way for a dog to say “I want to play with you” or “I want you to take me for a walk” is to disturb your present frame of activity. If you read a book he may bark, or come in front of you with one of his toys. The second option is very clear and resembles very much our ways of communicating. The first is often used by toddlers and also by adults who are too shy to make explicit request when they know they might be refused. But behind these specific request there are worlds of moods, feelings, reasoning also that may or may not be deciphered. They belong to a universe you can interpret a little, but you will never really be able to charter. Same thing happens for humans, you will never know really other people’s universe. But there is a difference: the existence of language. Language allow us to put up a façade, to cover your garbled intimacies with a “presentation”, which is only a little percentage of your real inner workings, motives, feelings. This does not happen with animals. And this is the reason for which their world is fascinating in their mysteriousness. A mysteriousness that is not a lie, something that belongs to the reality of life but eludes representations. Chagall’s animals perhaps, hints, not mechanical blowups of a naturalist.

Well put.

We have birds, and it's fascinating to interact with them. To watch them solve a problem, or listen to how they sqwak when they want attention. Very pure in their communication. Quite straightforward, that's probably why so many ASpies love cats.

This is something I've always sensed, but I've never heard the idea so well expressed and explained. This very simple yet profound form of communication is one of the things I love most about animals, and why I've always formed strong connections to them-a sort of understanding that is hard to explain, and that it is certainly the reason I feel so comfortable with them. They really are fascinating for this reason (I'll never tire of watching the beautiful and mysterious creature that is my cat) and comforting to interact with and to be around.

I think this form of communication also occurs, to a lesser extent, with family members; so many things can be communicated with simple gestures and phrases, it need not be abstracted and compressed into long sentences. If only we all simplified our communication more often, maybe then we'd appreciate feelings like love and friendship and joy for the complex and mysterious things they are, rather than trying to explain them away with simple sets of equations, the way we do now with animals.

My dog speaks and listens. I don't always get what she says at first, but she's learnt to make herself clear. She usually understands our speech before we understand hers!

My dogs often use gaze, (they're sighthounds: whippets). They stare at me if they want something, just sit there staring at me. They often indicate what they want by looking in its direction...the door open, the toy thrown etc. It's just so quick the look towards what they want, I don't always catch it.

i have a certain call for my one kitty.... and she has a certain call for me. i don't know how, but ive instilled in her the habit of giving two short consecutive meows that sound like "er-in".... and i always respond to her when she does this and she always comes to me when i call her...

she's very talkative and often tries to make weird, non-meow sounds when she is purring and looking at me... kinda sounds like "ehhh" but the it's kind of sound you make when you're doin a physical activity and need that extra umph! to move it (daiphram contraction, i guess)...

it's really weird.

she's so smart and cute though

Here's another view of your beautiful kitty:

same thing with my dog, sometimes i even think that she's more intelligent than some humans I happen to know

I've always gotten along well with animals, and seem to communicate with them just fine. Well, my son's beagle is dumber than a bag of hammers, but he's a happy little bugger... Usually do fine with farm animals too, but horses are my favorites. A few years ago I mucked stalls at my brother-in-laws horse farm after he had back surgery and my sister-in-law was expecting. They boarded for some breeders from time to time and there was one dapple gray there about 18 hands high that seemed to think it knew me... a real warhorse build on him too. Very friendly to me, but seemed to think I should get him out and RIGHT NOW for a ride, and if I wore full armor, he'd love it... absolutely gorgeous animal.

My wife and I are both heavy with aspie traits but largely different ones for her and me. Animals usually fear and distrust me, even some that I care for. But animals that have never seen us before will often take to my wife immediately. I have seen her walk over to a fence and a horse grazing in the middle of a pasture a hundred yards away will come over to the fence so she can pick grass for it and stroke its nose, but only if I keep back a respectable distance. They just trust her instinctively even if they usually act aloof, aggressive, shy, or wild. Maybe that is why I am drawn to her as well.

I think I communicate better with animals than I do people

Don't be embarrassed! Animals ARE easier to communicate with than people. Animals don't have head trips or try to figure out why you are so "weird." They're very direct. Even cats, who are famous for being passive-aggressive (I should know, I've had them my whole life and currently cohabitate with 3), are very direct in their passive-aggressiveness. You can totally tell what they want from you. For example, when Sparkle (my profile pic kitty) is hungry, she'll rustle a plastic bag on purpose and get on my nerves. As she is doing right this very minute. Dinner time here.

-J.

I've always gotten on with animals better than people. animals were really the only beings I could form friendships with that didn't try to hurt me. I'm wonderful with Dogs and horses never had any problems with them and they seem to like me right away. thats something that botheres me about NTs they find it very distrubing that I really care about animals.
I mean sure Nts can love their pets but not on the level that I do. from my perspective most of the normal people I know really think of animals as objects to be used and not something you could relate to at all or even something that has real feelings or thoughgts at all... sort of like furry robots. which couldn't be further from the truth.

I actually see most animals as thinking feeling beings like people, sure they see the world a lot differently and their minds and emotions work in totally different ways but then again I can relate to that

I'm likely to spend more time interacting with peoples dogs than I am with them.

If the situation were reversed and we were in the position of animals and they were in ours, would we be able to communicate our wants and needs as well?

I have cats and I have noticed that among themselves they are very nonverbal communicators; they use their voices more when they are around me. I just discovered my oldest cat (15) is deaf, so communicating with her is a challenge. She has no difficulty communicating to me!

My neighbor had horses when I was growing up; they were all retired Standardbreds so nobody rode them. They lived pretty much like wild mustangs in an enormous pasture that was full of rolling hills and valleys and wooded areas, so that whenever I went to find them I never knew where they might be and sometimes I had to hunt a while before I found them. I very seldom heard any of them whinny or neigh unless one was out of sight from the others. I spent hours watching them and came to the conclusion that vocalization among horses is a learned response to us being a very vocal species, that left to themselves they communicate silently, just like my cats.

I've noticed this with my cats too - unless one is playing too rough, causing the other one to cry or hiss, they usually communicate nonverbally with each other. But they meow to me and my boyfriend. They also try to communicate nonverbally with us, will not as much success. Maybe the meows are cries of frustration!

-J.

You should pick up the latest issue of National Geographic. Big article on animal Intelligence.