Animals: What Do They Know, and When Do They Know It?

"What did he know, and when did he know it?" This is one of several famous lines that arose during the Watergate hearings in the early 1970s, before Richard Nixon (to whom "he" refers) resigned.

I think all pet owners indirectly, implicitly ask the same questions about their pets. I don't think I have ever met a single pet-owner who did not, at some point, talk to the pet as if the pet were not just human but a human who spoke (and perhaps even read) in the same language as the owner. I did come close to meeting such a person--in Germany. He owned a bird. My wife asked him what the bird's name was. He said, "It has no name. It is a bird." Ah, Germany! But of course even this logical German spoke to the bird, in German, and spoke to the neighbor's dog, in German.

To what extent are animals conscious in the way humans are conscious? To everyone from pet-owners to animal-rights activists to scientists, this question fascinates endlessly.

Every day I wonder what our cat--a Russian Blue named Lisa Marie--is thinking. I ponder the logic of her actions. I told a friend, "I believe that cats have a good reason for doing everything they do but that often we are unable to detect the logic behind what they do." Defects in their behavior may actually be defects in our ability to follow cat-logic. (Alluding to a photograph of her cat, another blogger wrote, "This is an ears-back situation." I love that line, partly because it expresses cat-logic.)

Sometimes I tell the cat about a news-item that troubles me, partly because I enjoy the absurd theatre of talking to a cat, but also because it's quite comforting when the cat remains calm, unmoved by news that troubled me. Except when cats themselves are over-reacting, they usually caution us, with their behavior, about over-reacting. Very few things are worth interrupting a nap over, for example. Cats spend their energy very carefully.

The following poem wonders what raccoons know and when they know it:

Raccoon Consciousness

It’s said raccoons, for instance,
are not conscious of being conscious.
Those who say so reserve the right
to deny self-consciousness to others.

As if to prove such so-sayers
wrong, a fat raccoon waddled
regularly into our urban yard
around noon, after storing

two young ones inside a hollow,
hallowed elm. Through glances,
posture, and unintimidated wariness,
she appeared to suggest wisdom,

not to mention disdain for
the pretentiousness of non-raccoon
life. She gobbled earthworms
with gourmandic zest, cooled

her belly on wet grass,
yawned, groomed her hands,
fixed black eyes on me,
who stared at her through glass.

She seemed to know a lot,
including that she knew.