Tink, my three year old Norfolk terrier cross, had been intently looking into my eyes trying hard to tell me what was wrong. How do I know this? I just do a hundred little detailed signs that we use without thinking, shout out to me and let me know she is poorly and in pain.
Researchers and scientists say us humans are the only ones to have complicated speech and in-depth reasoning and I wonder who comes up with these ideas. That sort of lack of understanding and arrogance has led us into trouble and has stopped us from finding a multitude of things from nature. She may think a little differently that does not mean to say she is wrong and I should not listen to her.
Humans have speech because we have simply evolved that way. But we do not all use the same language. Even after many years evolving still some of us do not communicate very well, even with the power of our vocal cords. Animals are no different from us, in that some are ordinary and some are extraordinary.
If a person is bereft of human contact from birth they no longer have the ability or inclination of speech and find other ways of communicating. It does not mean they have a lesser capacity for reasoning, empathy or learning it just means they used other skills to survive. It may also mean they are very happy just the way they are. So looking on the matter from that view point, I assume speech is a learnt behaviour rather than a unique ability. Every animal on the planet communicates by sense of smell, posture, eyes, and facial expressions. Silent communicators such as the deaf have been ignored or labelled as retarded by the hearing, simply because we do not understand their voice. Is it the others fault we cannot understand their communicating rituals?
Many years ago I watched a program about a man that had spent many months interacting with dolphins. He made friends and had a close bond with a particular young one in the pod. On the day he was due to leave a storm blew up and the man became worried over the safety of this young dolphin.
Now I thought, let me get this straight, he thinks these sea mammals, whose families have lived in the sea for generations, who could communicate by radar clicks, snorts and body posture with possibly a whole spectrum of other ways of communicating and learning we are not aware of and this man assumed they didn’t know or communicate with each other about their own environment? The man was loving and caring and in his field a leading scientist, a very clever man but also very stupid.
He talked in raptures about his concern for this poor animal that could be torn to shreds on rocks in the storm and if this land mammal didn’t rescue him would be sure to perish. Many times he got hold of that young dolphins fin to lead him to safety. Eventually he listened to the dolphin who took him to his pleasure park of water currants that acted like theme park slides. The sea mammal gave the land mammal a marvellous time. Exhilarated over his experience he verbally expressed his shear delight. The dolphin no doubt bemused, swam away. This has always amused me and shown me how arrogant our naivety can be.
With foreign people we just shout at them thinking this will help or speaking very slowly distorting the words sounds that they do not recognise all in a vein hope that this will help. It has been scientifically proven that we look at people’s demeanour and facial expressions but we are not aware of it. Animals are far better at this then us so who really has more communication skills?
If we cannot understand their language how can we be sure their language is not as complex as humans? Take the whales they communicate over miles and with different pods. How do we know they are not talking about the weather or the smith pod’s children that are out of control and taking more than their fair share of plankton?
We put animals through tests of our reasoning and forget to explain why or why they should be bothered. Would we perform these tasks to aliens of higher intelligence? I am assuming they would have a higher intelligence as they got here first, but I could be wrong. It could be that they hit on a quicker way to travel sooner than us but are of the same average IQ.
Let’s face it some people in our world use a tree trunk canoe and have a full and happy life even more so than a scientist on a fully equipped power boat, possibly with a higher IQ too. If we bumped into the man in his tree trunk canoe and took our time and listen to him, we would no doubt learn a thing or two.
I listened to Tink and took her to the vets and she has just had her second operation to remove a follicle cyst. She is feeling much happier and has just dropped a ball on my foot, her daughter looked at us both and seising the opportunity, picked up her fluffy toy and flung it in the air, I guess its playtime.
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| Yes Tink I'm now going to play, she wonders over to the door, 'Oh you want to go out?' she sits on the floor 'Oh a Walk?' I get a waggy tail. Walk it is then she jumps up and liks me. |
