I’ve been reading a new book by Frans De Waal of Emory University and the National Primate Research Center, the book is called “Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are?” It’s both fascinating and provocative. I see many of my beliefs challenged and many affirmed.
I love to be asked to think about things, and I’ve been studying the minds of animals (and the people who own them) for more than a decade now. I’m going to write a series of pieces about this amazing subject, and I will draw from De Wall’s book but mostly from my own observations and experiences, especially with my dogs and donkeys, the two species of animals I know the best and believe show the most cognitive intuition, decision making and advanced intelligence.
The book is causing me to re-examine a number of my long-held beliefs. Unlike presidential candidates, I am proud to say I’ve changed my mind, it means I am still alive and open to new experience.
I’ve also spent some time observing the decision-making process and choices of cats and will write about them.
These are obviously my beliefs (when they are De Wall’s, I’ll say so but mostly they are mine, for better or worse). This morning, two examples for me to draw from:
I notice every morning when Maria and I enter the pasture that Chloe, her pony, assumes that we have treats for her. She rushes up to us, noses our pockets, checks our hands, sometimes prances a bit with excitement. Half the time we do have treats, half the time, we don’t. Chloe reacts the same way each morning.
But the donkeys react differently each day when we come to the gate. Rather than rush up to the gate, they watch us both closely when we come out of the house. Studying our voice, body language and eye movements – they are wondrous scholars of people – they will make a decision. Do these people have treats or not? If they sense we don’t, they either walk away or continue grazing. If they decide we do, they come up to the gate and get close to us.
My best guess is that they are studying our body language.
Clearly, they are making a decision each day, it is not based on what they can see or what we tell them or on any command, it is a cognitive process, it is decision-making, based not on words or thoughts but instincts and the animal equivalent of reasoning.
The pony, highly intelligent, doesn’t make that decision, she is conditioned to expect we will have something to give her, and whether we do or not, she will be there waiting. The donkeys show a different kind of intelligence, they decide each day whether we will bring them something or not.
Chloe shows considerable intelligence in her dealings with Maria, to whom she has attached and understands.
The second event occurred today on our daily walk in the woods. Fate ran to the far side to check on two ducks. As she got closer, the ducks flew away and Fate stepped into the water. That end of the pond, where she had never gone, was several feet deep and she suddenly found herself over her head in water. Fate does not swim, like most border collies, she isn’t built for it.
I watched her closely, ready to jump in if necessary. It wasn’t. Fate paddled quickly, stayed afloat and turned to the tree branch hanging over the water. She grabbed a branch in her mouth and used it to pull herself closer to the edge of the pond, where she was able to climb out. She used it in the same way lifeguards use buoys and lines.
It was an example of problem-solving and decision making, something many animals can not do, according to De Wall, and something some animals do much more intelligently than we can imagine. In the woods, Fate and Red will both make decisions about where we are going, and will walk or run on ahead of us. They are invariably correct.
De Wall and I share a lot of core beliefs (I am not biologist or primate researcher). Animals may be smart, but they are not smart in the way that humans are smart, or in the way many humans often wish to believe. He cites a study that concluded that one-quarter of all dogs owners believe their dogs are smarter than human beings.
It is an absurd comparison, since the neural systems of dogs are not remotely like that of human beings, and no comparison is really possible. The question is not whether they are smarter or dumber than us, but how smart are they? And in what way?
Anyone who researches or studies dogs and their humans knows right away that human project their needs and emotions onto their dogs. If you listened to what most of the dog owners you meet tell you, you would have to believe that 90 per cent of the dogs in America are savagely abused or mistreated every day of their lives. Or smart enough to read lips and speak French. We humans are arrogant, when we love something we assume they must be just like us, it is the only way in which most of us can begin to understand them.
Something about having a dog makes people narcissistic and absolute. I meet people with dogs all of the time, and they always tell me the emotional history of their dogs, including many things they could possibly know. Study after study shows that serious abuse of dogs is not widespread as a rule, although it certainly occurs. Why do so many people need to believe with absolute conviction that their dogs were mistreated?
In my mind, it is very often a human projection of our own pain and suffering. It is a way in which we attach to an animal like a dog, and love them with great intensity.
Animals are not like us, they are quite different in almost every way it is possible to be.
We cannot understand them by using our words and thoughts and emotions. To say they are intelligent is not to say that animal intelligence is the same thing as human intelligence. It is completely different, and to begin to understand it, we have to clear our heads of most of what we have been told or come to believe about animal consciousness. Most of that makes no sense, and is based on nothing but our own needs and feelings. Or as one behaviorist told me, it is garbage, worthless as research or science.
After all, animals do not use human language or symbols? How could they possible be intelligent in the way in which we understand the term?
Do dogs have consciousness. Do they desire?
I asked some dog lovers I know if dogs have consciousness and every one of them told me without hesitation that of course, they do. They certainly do. But behaviorists and biologists do not even agree on what consciousness is or means in a dog. There is no way anyone can say for certain if animals possess our kind of consciousness or not. So that means that anyone who reflexively answers the question may be sincere, but may not be correct or well-informed.
It’s a curious thing about the pet world, people have strong beliefs about their dogs and rarely express any doubt or confusion about them. They know their dogs are smart. But since they can’t speak, any vet will tell you we have to be careful and knowledgeable to figure out what is happening inside of their heads and their bodies. It is not easy or clear.
People go to school for six years and have trouble doing it.
I have lots of doubts and confusion about my dogs, saying what I don’t know is often more important than saying what I do know. It is very difficult to draw the line between instinct and intelligence. Their very powerful instincts often cause them to behave in ways we call smart, but may sometimes be reflexive. And scholars like De Waal tell us animals like dogs are smarter than most of us can imagine, but we can’t see it because we are stuck on putting our language into their mouths.
De Waal, one of the most respected animal behaviorists in the world, is very frank about admitting how little is really known in this field. But that doesn’t mean he and others don’t know a lot. The book is fascinating. I don’t really ever trust anyone blinded by certainty or self-interest. The people I always listen to are the ones who think but are not certain. The true intellectual is always filled with doubt. The politician has none.
Animal behavior is a grey and evolving area, there are very few absolute certainties, and the people who really want to know if their animals are smart will keep an open mind, and listen and watch, rather than proclaim and declare. I see my mistakes every day, and I learn something new every day. The most important words in my life with animals is “I don’t know.”
I do believe that animals like dogs – also donkeys and horses and cats – do have consciousness as I define it. (The dictionary defines it this way: the state of being conscious; awareness of one’s own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.) They are aware of themselves as individual beings. I believe they are remarkably intelligent and intuitive, capable of decision making, problem solving and cognitive evolution. I have seen it again and again, but the truth is I don’t really know.
I also recognize the great dangers of people who love animals making rational and detached judgments about them.
Dogs are one of the very few animals on the earth who can be taught to lie perfectly still for long periods of time.
They show great enthusiasm – as well as instinct – for certain tasks and work and play.I believe dogs can anticipate behavior as well as respond to it, and I see them problem solve every day.
My border collies have shown me again and again that they can learn and grow and change. Every morning, when I climb out of bed or go downstairs, Fate looks to see what clothes I wear and what shoes I put on, and goes to wait by the appropriate door – one to the pasture, one to the car, another to the back yard. Many dogs look to see if their humans look at the leashes hanging on the wall to see if they are going for a walk, or find other cues.
Fate often knows what I am doing before I focus on it myself, she studies my body language and movements and demeanor.
Red makes complex decisions about his work with sheep, and the donkeys can read my intentions from a mile away. If I have a needle in my pocket or medicine, they are gone in a flash. If I have a cookie, they will wait for me. They are watching and learning all the time. One even studies me to learn how to unleash the chain on the gate to the pasture.
For me, this is exciting stuff to write about and think about. This is, in many ways, a huge part of my life. There are many fascinating questions we all ask, and I’m going to write about them over the next couple of weeks, using De Waal as something of a springboard, along with my own observations and experiences.
I don’t write about sheep because I don’t see much intelligence in that species (chickens either) and my view of the sheep is compromised by my attachment and involvement with the dogs who herd them and move them around.
I hope this is useful to you, I have no intention of telling you what to do or what to think, but perhaps to spark a conversation or thought process that may be helpful or interesting to you as you consider one of the great mysteries: how smart are they?