Microsoft Word What are animals thinking They feel empathy, grieve, seek joy j (1)

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What are animals 
thinking? They feel 
empathy, grieve, seek joy 
just like us. 
I have lived 
for eight years now with my dog, Charlie—a 
bloodhound who’s embarrassingly bad at tracking scents. 
He greets me jubilantly every time I come home, even if 
it’s from a quick grocery run. I can hear his tail go 
thump- 
thump-thump 
on the floor in the next room when I laugh; 
he echoes my mirth even when he can’t see me. 
Yet, despite sharing this bond, I often sit down next to him 
on the couch, give him a hug, and ask my wife, “Do you 
think he loves me?” “Yes, yes!” she replies, with only slight 
exasperation, which is charitable because I ask so often. 
This routine is almost like a ritual in our household. I 
wonder if Charlie has any thoughts about it. Looking at 
him sunning himself on our front porch makes me think 
about a deeper question: How much do animal minds 
resemble ours? Do other species have thoughts and feelings 
and memories the way we do? 

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As humans, we still think of ourselves as exceptional 
beings, fundamentally different from other animals. Over 
the past half century, though, scientists have amassed 
evidence of intelligence in many nonhuman species. 
New 
Caledonian crows 
snip twigs to fish insect larvae from tree 
trunks. 
Octopuses 
solve puzzles and shield their dens by 
placing rocks at the entrance. We no longer doubt that 
many animals possess impressive cognitive abilities. But 
are they more than just sophisticated automatons, occupied 
solely with survival and procreation? 
A growing number of behavioral studies, combined with 
anecdotal observations in the wild—such as an 
orca 
pushing her dead calf around for weeks
—are revealing that 
many species have much more in common with humans 
than previously thought. 
Elephants grieve. 
Dolphins play 
for the fun of it. Cuttlefish have distinct personalities. 
Ravens seem to respond to the emotional states of other 
ravens. Many primates form strong friendships. In some 
species, such as elephants and orcas, the elders share 
knowledge gained from experience with the younger ones. 
Several others, 
including rats
, are capable of acts of 
empathy and kindness. (
Learn more about the hidden world 
of whale culture.
) 
This emerging picture of sentience, of rich inner lives, 
among surprisingly varied nonhuman species represents 
something of a Copernican revolution in how we view 
other beings on our planet. Until about three decades ago, 
the minds of animals were not considered a topic worthy of 

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scientific inquiry. “And animal emotions—well, that was 
for romantics,” recalls Frans de Waal, an Emory University 
ethologist who has spent a lifetime studying primate 
behavior. De Waal was one of the earliest voices advocating 
for the recognition of animal consciousness. Starting a 
couple of decades ago, he says, scientists began to concede 
that certain species were sentient but argued that their 
experiences were not comparable to ours, and thus not 
significant. 
Source: 
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/what- 
are-animals-thinking-feature