Hello Everyone,
Is obvious that animals are aware they can become injured, but are they aware of death? Judging by some of the bonehead moves I’ve seen by some I wonder if they are aware they can die. Things like a dog crossing a busy road seemingly unaware that getting hit by a car means lights out.
I think they just go by the golden rule.
Except cats, they’re amoral.
If a dog has never experienced or seen what a 50mph car can do upon impact, then maybe it wouldn’t be aware (although animals and people sort of instinctively shy away from oncoming 50mph objects.)
If you grew up in a glass bubble, and outside the bubble was yellow clouds of toxic chlorine gas, but nobody told you it was toxic, you might not have any fear of the chlorine.
Are you talking about morality or mortality?
I think an antelope in the wild instinctively knows to flee from a pursuing lion, though. Whether it’s thinking *death *in an abstract sense is hard to tell, but it definitely knows that getting caught by the lion is bad news.
Mortality, I got auto corrected. For those that have read previous post by me this seems to be a common occurrence. Old eyes, small phone and big fingers.
I believe that some animals recognize death from experience, but are not necessarily aware of the fact that death will eventually be knocking at their door.
-LC
Scientists are studying this question more thoroughly these days. I became fascinated with questions like this after working for some time in animal rescue. I recommend books like this if you’re interested, they’re all good reads:
The Emotional Lives of Animals, by Marc Bekoff
What’s a Dog For, by John Homans
Animal Wise, by Virginia Morell
What scientists are doing right now is trying to methodically, and using the scientific method, find evidence that backs up anecdotal evidence from field studies of wild animals and pet owners. This is true for everything from the idea that animals have emotions, to rational thinking to understanding mortality and yes, even having a sense of morality, compassion and right and wrong. Early studies have shown that some species do seem to have an understanding of death. Elephants, crows and some other species demonstrate what appears to be grieving or honoring the dead rituals when they encounter corpses or skeletons of their same species. They tend not to do those behaviors when they encounter corpses or skeletons of other species.
It will take more research to prove whether animals have a sense of mortality like we do, in the sense of fearing death. They absolutely avoid pain and harm, no question about that. But if they ponder death and feel fear about it like we do? No way to know without asking them.
Missed the edit window again…
Speaking of anecdotal evidence, there is a lot of this kind of thing taken from the Spanish rescue that I work with. At the time this photo was taken, he’d been rescued but was already very far gone into despair. He was always found in this huddled facing the back corner position in the rescue kennel, and his body language says to me “I just want to die”. (He’s been adopted by a nice family in the U.S. and no longer looks like this.)
Fixed typo in thread title.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Also… given the almost weekly news reports of pedestrians getting struck by cars in the D.C. area, not many people are this smart, either. Although we know humans have a sense of mortality! LOL!
My dog got really sick awhile ago. I thought he was dying and I believe he did so too. He kept going out to lay in the garden. I’d go pick him up and put him someplace more comfortable like the couch or the bed and he’d head back out to the garden. I went to bed that night not expecting to see him again. Thankfully, he got better. He’s never laid in the garden before or since. I’m pretty sure he could tell he was almost done for.
Nicely said, including the subsequent post.
There are several different questions wrapped up in the OP. All living creatures have instinctive survival traits, but a dog will obviously not be aware of artificial human-created dangers like busy streets unless it has learned them, by being taught or by experience. For that matter, neither will a child, nor an adult from someplace where he has never seen a car before. Those aren’t interesting questions.
The interesting question is to what extent an intelligent animal like a dog is aware of its mortality in the sense of knowing that it will grow old and die. I think there are several dimensions to that, too. I don’t believe that they’re intellectually aware of it in the same sense that most of us are, and indeed one of the beautiful things about dogs and other intelligent animals is how they can fully enjoy the moment without being burdened by fretful concerns about what the future may bring. There is no happiness as pure as that of a happy dog or a happy child. The rest of us can only dream of it.
But the other dimension touches on some of the things you’ve alluded to. Some of us who have had a dog that developed a fatal illness will know that there may come a point where the dog gives up on life, where that endearing optimism abruptly vanishes and he appears, knowingly, to embrace death. You can see it in his behaviors, and for those who have been privileged to be close enough and attuned enough to their dog, you can see it in his eyes. We think of dogs as our “dumb chums” but they are the product of a million years of evolution. They sometimes seem to have a wisdom that is more than we can fathom.
Many will exhibit some sort of depression with the loss of a offspring. Elephants are particularly know for this.
I also had a cat which seemed thankful for the final trip to the vet to do the deed.
Yes, dogs will often dissappear when seriously ill or near death.
I was going to come in here and post about elephants, but I see someone already did. Isn’t there anecdotes about elephants returning to the bones of a dead group member and touching them in an almost ritualistic manner?
Yes, those are the grief/funeral rituals that I alluded to earlier, and have been documented by animal behaviorists in the field. Of course the battle they’re fighting is the issue of “the plural of anecdotes is not data”, thus the intensively methodical studies now trying to change the collection of anecdotes into a body of evidence that the scientific community can no longer scoff at.
Interestingly those “higher” species like elephants will collectively defend a member of their group when threatened. If that doesn’t tell you they are aware of some level of mortality, then I don’t know what will. It’s not like they’re thinking, “hey, humans with long metal boom sticks are coming, I think they want to give us food, let’s chase them away!” 
Speaking of scientific studies of animal cognition, it’s a vast and fascinating area right now. The biggest problem we face in disproving Cartesian theories (animals are unthinking, unfeeling automatons, merely programmed to behave as if they think and feel) which many people still adhere to today (!) is the communication barrier. Think about this a bit: how do you scientifically prove that I am a thinking, feeling creature like yourself? Most easily: you ask me and I tell you. Now if I can’t talk how do you prove it? Much harder. (This is the root of some bigotry and horrible human abuses in our past - people from places that don’t speak my language are brought to me to be slaves. They can’t talk so they must therefore be dumb animals. But that’s a whole nuther hairy ball of wax…)
Most of us are aware of scientific studies to teach primates sign language, like the famous Koko the gorilla. There was another person who thought… why not try teaching human language to a species that is capable of making human vocal sounds? Like perhaps African Grey Parrots? Her studies are astonishing. See the book titled “Alex and Me” by Irene Pepperberg, or the more scientifically rigorous (because it’s literally her research papers published in book form) The Alex Studies.
A conversation between Irene and Alex from the book:
“You be good. I love you,” Alex said.
“I love you too.”
“You’ll be in tomorrow?”
“Yes, I’ll be in tomorrow.”
This thread reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”
-D. H. Lawrence
This brings up the even bigger problem, that most of the people doing the research are heavily invested in supporting one side of the argument. No animal has ever really learned sign language and yet the support for this hoax has perpetuated for years. When all the animal researchers are animal lovers you tend to get some of these problems.
