Like many of us, especially those who have pets, I'm a sucker for anthropomorphizing, or attributing human characteristics to animals. Occasionally you feel a tingle of excitement at watching an animal's mind work, and you think you understand what's happening. On the one hand these flashes of empathy, that feeling of seeing something through another animal's eyes, provide a sense of wonder and mutual understanding, but on the other hand they may often be projections that stem from our species' never-satiated desire to consider ourselves the all-understanding pinnacle of development on Mother Nature's totem pole. Yet it's still a thrill when it happens.
Heck, sometimes it's a thrill when it happens between humans, but I digress.
I could swear I followed Choco the cat's train of thought for several seconds the other day, and it was fascinating to watch because she exhibited a form of reasoning that we can relate to. My wife and I were sitting in the living room watching TV and Choco was curled up on the carpet. Suddenly there was a bang upstairs as the wind blew a door shut.
Naturally Choco jumped, but what followed was more interesting. She looked at my wife, she looked at me. . . and then her eyes widened, her ears flattened, and her body assumed the classic Halloween cat "fight or flight" pose, muscles tensed and back arched. To my mind it was clear that she'd counted heads and reached the conclusion that if we were both with her, the noise must be an intruder.
Yeah, yeah, cats are said to have the intellectual capability of a two or three-year-old human, so what's so amazing about this? I dunno. It just felt cool to get into Choco's mind, and empathize with that primeval, horror-movie reaction of "if we're all here, what was that?!"
Posted by Paul at September 4, 2009 10:45 AM