Good listen last night on the TED Radio Hour; the interview before this wasn't quite as good: it was about mental disease in animals and pets who "go crazy", but no one thought to ask "Is it because maybe they're just really lonely?"

Anyway, link to interview that should give religionists and philosophers pause. TL;DR -- animals can be altruistic.

https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=338936897

Since we’re wired to be moral without religion, I want to live like the bonobos.

Key message for me:

"DE WAAL: Well, the traditional view is, of course, that morality comes either from God or it comes from philosophers. Our basic instincts are all bad. And then civilization manages to make it good. We have a good side, which is cultural and religious, and a bad side, which is biological.

But if you look at other species like the primates or elephants or dolphins and so on, you see all these socially positive tendencies. You see that entire spectrum that we like in our moral systems of behavior. So it's not something that we came up with or something that we developed only culturally. It's something that is biologically already there."

My dog is a more honest and moral entity than vast majority of humans I know.

HH =)

My cat TK (Tom Kat) seems to instinctively know my ups and downs. From reports by my friends when I was in the hospital last week having my heart attack he was upset and paranoid. After I got home he was not interested at all in leaving my side for three days.

I'm so glad you have Tom Kat to love up on you.

thedesertrat1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My cat TK (Tom Kat) seems to instinctively know my
> ups and downs. From reports by my friends when I
> was in the hospital last week having my heart
> attack he was upset and paranoid. After I got home
> he was not interested at all in leaving my side
> for three days.


This is a wonderful story to read today--I NEEDED to read something like this.

Thank you for posting this!

:)

Our family dog used to check the entire house every night before she went to bed. She would stop at every bedroom door to listen for breathing. Only when she was reassured that we were all safely in our beds would she go to bed herself.

She was wonderful with young children. She seemed to instinctively understand that they were not as responsible as adults. She would let them tug on her ears and try to ride her.

My current cat is not much of a cuddler, but when I am really sick he will be right beside me in bed.

And once, a roommate's cat was with me while I was crying in my bed. He came up and touched his nose to mine (a cat "kiss.") He was definitely showing empathy.

Awww... my dogs are my babies. They love taking naps with me, too. I have one that is always within eyesight. I call him "TV Buddy" because he likes sitting next to me when I watch reality TV shows.

Aaaaawwww!

Pets interfere with your sleep, so my black lab sleeps in a dog bed. When I'm home, she is no farther away than 3 feet of me. When I'm in the bathroom, she waits right by the bathroom door, with her nose under the door. She won't sleep in her dog bed, unless it is touching my bed.

She knows when it's time for the kids to come home from school.

When I smile at her, she actually smiles back. The neighbors call her "The Smile Dog." She reads facial expressions. A frown is punishment to her. She's the best listener, ever. All these years, and I still don't fully realize that she can't talk. She makes speech-like sounds, and is expressive in her body language. She has a huge vocabulary, and we often have to spell words, until she learns the spelling, too! Words such as "t-r-e-a-t" and "w-a-l-k", and her name. We have taught her a lot of tricks, using hand signals. She wants to please us, and tries very hard.

A pet is often closer to us in space and in time spent together, than even a spouse.