I have thought about that as well, Marilyn.  Do animals talk?  But I'm
not sure that's the right question.  The right question might be, "Why
are humans mostly limited to simply talking?"
 
Humans communicate in a variety of ways.  We have body language, and
our feelings show on our faces at times.  But the main mode of our
communication is through speech.  "Can I please have a cup of tea?" to
"I like it very much when you think of me."  Because we have the "gift"
of speech, we tend to ignore most of our other forms of communication.
That is why it's sometimes easy to tell when somebody is lying.  They
count on you noticing only their words, and because we often ignore our
other forms of communication they forget and assume that we will only
notice the words that they say.  Lying is a good example of this, because
I can't think of any other species that does that besides us.
 
Animals might "talk" in a vocal/audible sense, and I would bet that they
do.  They are so much more superior to communicating things to each other
than we are in many situations.  But most animals communicate in ways
that are non-verbal.  So, how do they do that?  Is it mental telepathy?
We don't want to consider anything along those lines, because we can't
apply it to ourselves - we can't prove it, we can't hear or see it, so
we dismiss it.  We very much limit our understanding in that way.
 
People who keep ferrets find that they make a variety of sounds.  There's
dooking when excited or playing.  They chatter when they're in distress
("Sorry to step on your toe, Bubbles").  But for the most part, ferrets
communicate using their whole bodies.  They follow us around.  They come
up to us and lay their head on our feet.  Shelby physically climbs up my
leg when she wants attention.
 
Now, those are the things I think I understand about how ferrets
communicate.  But one has to wonder if there are other ways, possibly
many other ways.
 
Shelby will follow me around sometimes, and try to get my attention.  At
first, she will follow my feet because my feet are often the bottom of
her ladder.  But I've noticed something peculiar.  Sometimes I will stop
when en she's following me and turn around to talk to her.  I naturally
look down to where she's at when I do this.  Often at this point she will
scoot backwards about 6 inches or so and look up directly into my face.
Why would she do this?  Why not turn around, take a few steps, then turn
around again?  Why does she feel the need to back up?  Is she trying not
to lose facial/eye contact with me?  The sound I make originates from my
face, but because she understands little or nothing of my language I
don't think the sound I make is that important to her.  But the face to
face contact between her and I can be intense.  She will look at me a
long time, sometimes long after I stop talking.
 
Is she waiting for something?  What is she "hearing"/seeing from me?  Why
does the facial contact last so long?  Am I communicating something in a
way that I don't understand?  Is she waiting for me to communicate with
her in her own way?  That would not be so far-fetched.  We often expect
animals to understand what we're trying to communicate to them, so why
wouldn't animals expect us to understand their form of communication?
This face to face contact could easy be dismissed as "dumb" animal
behavior, but maybe I'm the "dumb" one.  Dumb animals.  It's only seems
to be an accurate phrase if we include ourselves in that group.
 
And something else... Why do ferrets try to communicate with us at all?
Yes, they come to us for food and water, but most times ferrets seem to
come to us for no reason whatsoever, or at least for reasons that we're
probably deficient in understanding.  You can say they are trying to get
our "attention." Why?  Think about it.  If it's not about food or water,
why would they need our attention?  Why do they feel the need to play?
What do they get from us when we pick them up and hold them?  Why do they
seem to enjoy it when we softly stroke their heads?  What do any of these
things actually "mean" to them?  Do they see that as our way of "talking"
to them?  What is it that we're saying?  It would be easy to say that I'm
trying to read too much into this, but it could also be easy to imagine
that I am reading too little into it as well.  The truth is we just don't
know.
 
Ah, Marilyn - to have the answers to these questions... I've often
wondered all these things, myself.  I think it's too easy to simply
dismiss this as "animal behavior." Thanks, Marilyn, for bringing
this up.
 
Roary
Albuquerque, NM
blog - http://ferretphilosophy.blogspot.com/
 
"Anthropomorphism is simply preposterous," said the weasel as he sat in
his easy chair and drank his tea.
[Posted in FML issue 5196]