Prairie Dog Speak

[rabid1st]

Twenty years ago, when I studied to be a veterinarian, anthropomorphism was the sin of science. Whatever you do don't make the mistake of thinking animals were anything like humans! They didn't have thoughts or emotions or language or souls. They were just a bag of genetically coded responses. And you know what? Maybe that's all WE were, too. What is the word for thinking people are just reactionary animals?

In vain did I explain to my classmates and teachers that we couldn't claim that evolution formed our brains and our brains were responsible for every behavior and then, also, claim that our dog didn't have language skills. Because if you don't have that part of your brain that understands language, which would only evolve if you used it, then you don't respond to spoken commands to SIT by sitting. Dogs and cats and birds and horses all respond to verbal commands as well as a host of visual cues. So, either the brain isn't a product of evolution or animals have their own verbal skills and we, poor humans, haven't yet figured them out.

Which brings me to the lovely study done of the humble prairie dogs and how they communicate...with real distinct words...that we just didn't hear.

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/132650631/new-language-discovered-prairiedogese

I am sure I have mentioned this story before, because this study has been going on for years, and I've been following it along. But I love to periodically visit it for updates and such, because I think this story goes to the heart of what is wrong with our species. If we could finally accept that we understand so very little about the world around us, perhaps we could accept that it is okay to imagine a better world. Maybe global climate change is happening. Maybe we could stop it. Maybe the dead are all around us. Or maybe God is clamouring for our attention and we just don't listen. Maybe other people aren't horrible just because they are different. Maybe we don't know everything and that's okay. Yes! The prairie dogs, and your dog, have language skills. No! We didn't always know that! And maybe it is okay to think about all the other things we don't REALLY know. You know what I mean?

Comments

[auntiesuze.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is really amazing! I mean, it's a given that animals communicate with each other, but this is still fascinating. Who knew the prairie dogs were paying attention to what we wear?! :D

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Yeah! I have a little edge on the animal behavior thing because my cat, Sheba, took an active interest in my schooling as a child. Seriously! I don't know if it was just that I was a weird and lonely kid and she was my only playmate for a few years...or if there was something about me that appealed to her. But she set out to teach me how to hunt bunnies and so I learned some cat language in the fourth and fifth grade. Cats hunting in tandem use a lot of signals, probably more than I could comprehend, actually. But I knew that they weren't just meaty bags of instinctive machinery when I was told that by the animal behaviorists in college.

I should have gone into animal behavior studies when I lost out on the veterinarian schooling. Because I would have been on the cutting edge of all of this stuff and perhaps at the prairie dog study. I love it. It is sort of like discovering and alien world right here on Earth. I suppose it isn't too late to go back to school. Though few have animal behavior degrees even now. Le Sigh.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

And you know, it really wasn't a given that animals communicate with one another just thirty years ago. None of my teachers accepted it twenty years ago. It was more accepted outside the scientific community. But within it, the idea was seriously ridiculed and only very open-minded teachers taught that there "might" be some truth to the idea that your dog understands you. Even though people like Woodhouse were making huge strides in animal behavior. It was like they had no eyes, Suze! Drove me mad. And made them shake their head at my "sentiment." Even though sentiment had nothing to do with what I was saying to them.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

An excellent movie to see the attitude I had to deal with is Temple Grandin.

http://www.templegrandin.com/

Dr. Grandin is autistic, but the attitude she faces when trying to explain how her autism made her aware of cattle communication is exactly the attitude that I faced years later. She made her breakthroughs in 1973 a good few years before I worked with these same people, and they were all still willfully clueless.

Good lord, 1973 is almost 40 year ago now. Sheesh! But the science of animal communication is still in infancy.

Rae

[wickedgillie.livejournal.com]

:-)