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Communicating with animals?

All Acting Regiment

20:38 / 16.11.03

I'd like to know if anyone has managed to somehow communicate with an animal of some kind- I myself seem to have initiated a "I respect you, your okay" dialogue with my cat through yawning, but i wondered if anyone had really got to know something?

Shanghai Quasar

22:24 / 16.11.03

Yes, though unfortunately most of my efforts have been unilateral. Dogs have barked to alert me to the presence of outsiders. Dream animals are an entirely different issue, but I'm not certain that qualifies.

Perhaps a book on this subject is in order! "Tao of Doctor Dolittle" or something to that effect.

02:08 / 17.11.03

I have a dog that will push the top of his head into my mom or I as if to be saying "I love you." Most of the time he'll do this when we get home from a trip, but he also does it in responce to one of us telling him we love him and also unprompted if we're sitting on the floor.

14:01 / 17.11.03

When I was growing up, I had a book called "The Secret Language of Cats" or something like that. In addition to all the "why cats are the bestest animals in the world" stuff, there was a section on feline sounds and body language. I actually did find it useful in communicating with my cat (and, to a lesser extent, with other cats I've known but didn't live with). It was less a dialogue than my cat doing his thing (yowling, mewling, chirping, twitching tail, etc.) and me having a better idea of what he wanted and responding to it - certain sounds meant "pet me, pet me now!" while others meant "feed me" or "there's something wrong." Sometimes he wanted to be picked up and held, other times just petted on the ground, things like that. And the more I learned to distinguish and respond appropriately, the more communicative and specific he got. He started going out of his way to let me know if he didn't like something I was doing (like practicing my violin - he hated it), and would turn to me with "questioning" sounds and gestures if something happened that he didn't know how to deal with (like a new piece of furniture - that can really freak a cat out, it's hilarious!).

Dogs can be especially easy to communicate with, since they are naturally very social animals. I spent many years living with a pack of between 16 and 20 dogs, so I got to learn a lot about their interaction. I was able to adapt their signs and behavior (body language, eye contact, bared teeth, "barking") to establish myself as the pack alpha, which made handling much easier (they were showdogs).

I had an interesting relationship with our alpha female - she seemed to accept me as co-leader of the pack, generally doing what I asked her to, but with a minimum of submissive gestures. She didn't fawn like the others did, but she would come to me whenever she saw that "something needed doing."

Anyone else have canine "pack" experience?

~L

All Acting Regiment

19:56 / 17.11.03

We had this dog and it would only do something if my step-sister told it to. Not sure why it identified with her particularly- probably because she could shout the loudest.

20:54 / 17.11.03

Not with a pack, but I've known a couple of half-wolf dogs (and one coyote) that absolutely speak the pack-talk. Its not hard to learn, and you'll get on so much better with the dogs once you do. Its especially useful when wrestling with pups, as the point of the game is a dominance one to establish alphaness for when they grow up. Especially when the pup might grow to outweigh you later, like the cute fellow some good friends of mine just got. So, don't be afraid to bite back, they expect it

Once you get the swing of it, getting along with other people's dogs becomes really easy.

I speak a little Cat, but its a harder language to learn than Dog. Cats are all body language and facial expressions (like squinting eyes to say, "chill, its cool"), though they'll get vocal if you respond to it well. As a general rule, cats train you, not the other way around

Unsuprisingly, I learned most of the Cat I speak at once putting myself back together after a nice long trip. Laying on the bed with the cats, I slipped right into the family grooming thing they do, and really clicked with the non-verbal stuff. The one still insists on bathing me occasionally. Later, someone opened the door, and we all stalked out together as a pack. There's this thing they do when stalking out an area, checking along the edges of the room and glancing back at each other to verify that the other has covered the space they couldn't see. I did that. It was a really neat sort of group mindedness.

09:51 / 20.11.03

It depends what you mean by "know something". I understand pretty much everything my cat is communicating to me and he seems to get pretty much everything I say to him. He lets me know when he wants something, when he's content, when he's upset, when he's curious, when he has seen something he wants me to pay attention to etc. As far as what is the meaning of life, no, but then I'm not sure my cat is particularly interested in such things!

As mentioned by others most animals communicate as a combination of body language. My dogs are quite vocal which makes communication slightly easier, cats less so but will become more vocal the more you 'talk' to them, guinea pigs and gerbils are quite vocal as are most birds.

It took me longer to get to grips with communicating with animals that are rarely vocal. Most of horse communication is silent and also very physical which can be a bit alarming if your not prepared for it. Its worth perservering with however because I can't explain efectively how rewarding it is to sit in a field with horses and have them treat you as part of the herd. Its worth the grass gunge in the hair *grins*

10:03 / 20.11.03

I like this thread. Very interesting. Cusm, didn’t the animals freak out when they picked up or smelt you were on drugs, this happened to a mate of mine – his dog ended up giving her funny looks for the whole trip. Or was it post trip?

Sadly, I don’t have loads of experience here, beyond hanging out with my mum’s two mad dogs and assorted cats, the surrogate children now me and my sister have left home. I did have a great experience earlier on the Isle of Skye, stopped to feed a horse on the way back to where I was staying and ended up running up and down the road with the horse galloping alongside me, keeping pace. Nice to know they can be playful as well. Peter Redgerove mentions the therapeutic value of hanging out with animals in his book “The Black Goddess and the Sixth Sense”, apparently it helps to lower blood pressure and gets us to relax in all sorts of ways. Not much else to add other than to recommend (again) Gordon MacLellan’s excellent book “Sacred Animals”.

10:13 / 20.11.03

I spent quite some time developing my Catmagic and pride myself on being able to get on with almost any moggy, and can communicate well enough. The down side is birds keep away from you and I don't like dogs much, but it's a small price to pay.
I've tried squirrels a few times (notably on acid in Alexandra park) but they are too skittish, foxes are rude (and nocturnal) and mice and rats have nothing to say particularly, and anyway they're the enemy.
Horses sound fun!

18:20 / 20.11.03

Illmatic,

Twas more post trip, in the quiet bedroom they'd been hiding in all night. Really, I had curled up into their space, so it seemed the natural thing to interact with them on their terms.