I have always talked to animals and although they don't have the ability to answer in my language they have shown me that just like little children they can learn the language, other than sit, come and stay. This has been proven with Koco the gorilla. And of course with cats we know that they don't feel a necessity to respond to commands. I never state a command, I state a request. I always talk to my kids, as I call them, now 6 cats. If I have to give a pill, I demonstrate myself taking it first and I tell them why it is good to take it. They are compliant. I think some people just assume that animals, because they cannot speak a language (unlike parrots) cannot understand language and so an animal is disrespectfully shoved and pulled and prodded with no regard for their dignity.
A parrot was sitting atop a door when one of us kids (a that time) ran through the doorway shutting the door. We were concerned that the parrot may have been injured. Someone got a towel to contain the bird for examination at which time the parrot ran across two beds yellinging, HELP HELP. As it turned out the bird was not injured as it must have flown away from the door as it closed. I have never forgotten that incident and the bird could have just as easily spoken it's Spanish of, Kiss my little foot or sung it's little opera rendition but fleeing from captors it yelled help help. i have seen people yelling commands and want to say, so much, it isn't deaf. When giving treats, when one of my cats left one on the floor I said, you missed one and looked I that direction. My kitty turned, walked over and retrieved the treat. I am seeing more and more examples of this. The first time was a long time ago. Orangutans favored their oranges over their other foods. I told one of them to get her orange before someone else did. She got up, turned and walked about 6 feet and retrieved the orange. At the time, I chalked it up to coincidence. But now I have to reconsider. I would like to take a little more time and post something dear to me;
“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
― Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
Thank you.
A parrot was sitting atop a door when one of us kids (a that time) ran through the doorway shutting the door. We were concerned that the parrot may have been injured. Someone got a towel to contain the bird for examination at which time the parrot ran across two beds yellinging, HELP HELP. As it turned out the bird was not injured as it must have flown away from the door as it closed. I have never forgotten that incident and the bird could have just as easily spoken it's Spanish of, Kiss my little foot or sung it's little opera rendition but fleeing from captors it yelled help help. i have seen people yelling commands and want to say, so much, it isn't deaf. When giving treats, when one of my cats left one on the floor I said, you missed one and looked I that direction. My kitty turned, walked over and retrieved the treat. I am seeing more and more examples of this. The first time was a long time ago. Orangutans favored their oranges over their other foods. I told one of them to get her orange before someone else did. She got up, turned and walked about 6 feet and retrieved the orange. At the time, I chalked it up to coincidence. But now I have to reconsider. I would like to take a little more time and post something dear to me;
“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
― Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
Thank you.
