Now, it may surprise people who think animals are objects, but every single word you have just read about human infants, about their physiological and emotional responses to stroking and petting, and about the consequences if they are deprived of this attention, is true not only for human babies. It is also true, in every detail, for puppies, kittens, baby monkeys, and a large number of other mammals.33
Dr. Harry Harlow, at the University of Wisconsin, has done extensive studies on the influence of love and affection in the lives of subhuman primates. In one appalling experiment, monkeys were deprived of their mothers. The result?
They have shown many signs of extreme neuroticism and even psychosis. Most of them spend their time sitting passively staring out into space, not interested in other monkeys or anything else.
Some of them tensely wind themselves into tortured positions, and others tear at their flesh with their teeth…These are all symptoms found in human adults confined in institutions for the insane.
Mother dolphins nurse their young for 18 months, and the mother-child bond is deep and enduring. Dolphins four to six years old have been known to seek out their mothers from a group when they become sleepy or frightened. So devoted are these animals to the welfare of one another that they will not abandon or desert a fellow dolphin who seems to be injured or distressed even if it costs them their life. When infant dolphins are caught in tuna nets, their mothers will go to extraordinary lengths to join their doomed young. Once in the nets, they will huddle together with their offspring, singing to them. The tuna industry takes note of this only to acknowledge that the majority of dolphins killed in their nets are females and infants.34
It’s not only with dolphins, and it is not only in the parent-child relationship that animal love is evident. Even hard-nosed scientists who have studied wolves have been consistently amazed at the exceptional degree of what can only be called love and affection they show for one another. Gordon Haber, who has studied wolves for decades and is recognized as one of the world’s leading wolf experts, notes that one of the outstanding features of these animals is their profound devotion and caring for one another. For example, he saw a wounded wolf in Alaska, its shoulder shattered and bleeding from being kicked by a caribou, limp into an abandoned cabin and lie down, seemingly to die alone as animals often do. But each night another wolf crept into the cabin and fed its crippled friend by bringing it chunks of meat. He continued to care for the wounded wolf until it recovered.35
Many animals, including beavers, geese, eagles, wolves, hawks, penguins, lynxes, and mountain lions, mate monogamously for life and are utterly devoted to their mates in a way that most married humans—who have pledged to care for each other “until death do us part”—could never imagine. Animals can suffer precisely because they have the ability to give and receive love, and a need to do so.
Intelligence
Still the blindness continues. Those who say that animals can’t suffer in any meaningful way often claim that any pain sensations the animals might feel have no meaning because they are too stupid to know that they hurt. However, it seems to me remarkably limited for us to assume that because an animal does not display intelligence as we know it, it is therefore stupid.
It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
—MARK TWAIN
Even among our own species, we often don’t recognize forms of intelligence that are perhaps a little different from the norm. Albert Einstein’s parents were sure he was retarded because he spoke haltingly until the age of nine and even after that would respond to questions only after a long period of deliberation. He performed so badly in his high school courses, except mathematics, that a teacher told him to drop out, saying, “You will never amount to anything, Einstein.”36 Charles Darwin did so poorly in school that his father told him, “You will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.”37 Thomas Edison was called “dunce” by his father and “addled” by his high school teacher and was told by his headmaster that he “would never make a success of anything.”38 Henry Ford barely made it through school with the minimum grasp of reading and writing.39 Sir Isaac Newton was so poor in school that he was allowed to continue only because he was a complete flop at running the family farm.40 Pablo Picasso was pulled out of school at the age of 10 because he was doing so badly. His father hired a tutor to prepare him to go back to school, but the tutor gave up on the hopeless pupil.41 Giacomo Puccini, the Italian opera composer, was so poor at everything as a child, including music, that his first music teacher gave up in despair, concluding the boy had no talent.42
If we can be so far amiss in recognizing types of intelligence that are a bit different from the norm and yet belong to members of our own species who are destined to make great contributions, it seems likely we might fail to recognize some forms of intelligence that belong to beings of other species.
Researchers have done exhaustive studies of animal and human brains. Most of these studies have been motivated by a desire to find a biological basis for the belief that there is a profound difference between human and animal forms of intelligence.
No cut-and-dried dividing line has emerged. Comparing the “structure and function of the human brain with the brains of other animals,” scientists have found that humans and other animals differ less than is commonly thought.
Surprisingly, the similarities are greater than the differences…A striking similarity between the human and non-human mammalian brain is seen in the electrical activity patterns of electroencephalograph (EEG) readings. A dog, for example, has the same states of activity as man, its EEG patterns being almost identical in wakefulness, quiet sleep, dreaming, and daydreaming. As for the chemistry of the central nervous and endocrine systems, we know that there is no difference in kind between human and other animals. The biochemistry of physiological and emotional states (of stress and anxiety, for example) differ little between mice and men.43
Incredible Journeys
There are so many instances in which animals have demonstrated profound intelligence that, frankly, I wonder sometimes about the intelligence of the people who insist that animals are dumb. Everyone has heard tales of dogs traveling great distances across unknown terrain to rejoin their people. What you might not know, however, is that many of these stories are documented, verified, and, incredible as they seem, literally true.
For example, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Martin moved from Des Moines to Denver. But their German shepherd, Max, evidently preferred Des Moines, because he went back on his own, a distance of 750 snow-covered miles.44
Another German shepherd, living in Italy, missed his human companion, who had recently moved from Brindisi to Milan and left the animal behind. It took the dog four months to cover the 745 miles, but he managed to do it and found his person to boot.45
Even more remarkable is a shorter journey of “only” 200 miles, described by Sheila Burnford in her book The Incredible Journey. Three animals—an old English bull terrier, a young Labrador retriever, and, believe it or not, a Siamese cat—stayed together, took care of each other, and found their way across 200 miles of rugged Canadian wilderness in northwestern Ontario.46
I would never have thought a cat capable of such a feat. But I was wrong. There are actually many documented and verified accounts of cats traveling great distances to be with their people. The longest I know of is also one of the best authenticated. It concerns a New York veterinarian who moved to a new job and house in California and had to leave his cat behind, expecting to send for him later. But the cat disappeared prematurely, so the doctor understandably assumed he had seen the last of his cat. Five months later, however, the cat “calmly walked into the (new) house, and