| Author |
|
Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 13425
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | 1
|
post reply
|
|
LINK: https://archive.ph/6bkh9
QUOTE:
| Apes, monkeys, dolphins and whales sometimes carry the corpses of their young for days or weeks. Some bereaved macaque mothers become isolated and withdrawn, receiving less grooming and initiating fewer hugs. Giraffes stand vigil over fallen calves; elephants touch the bones of their dead. Dogs, cats and horses sometimes seem to lose interest in food after the death of animal (or human) companions, owners have reported.
Whether these behaviors are signs of sorrow is open to interpretation, and reports from animal caretakers are not always reliable. (Bereaved pet owners might project their own grief onto their surviving animals.) |
|
|
Anyone experience this anecdotally?
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 137418
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | 2
|
post reply
|
|
My cat Earl had a particular spot on a carpet in the front hallway of my previous home. He lay there all day long, monitoring the whole house. The morning after he died I came downstairs to find Wanda, my chow, lying with her nose on that spot.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Evan S. Kurtz
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 July 2022
Location: Canada
Posts: 479
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | 3
|
post reply
|
|
The fact that they aren't already certain that animals grieve is just another example of how humans regularly underestimate the depth of personality and complexity of animals.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 137418
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | 4
|
post reply
|
|
Yes, since they don’t think exactly the way we do some dismiss any suggestion that they think at all. Growing up, I was most intrigued by the way that dogs, lacking speech centers in their brains, nevertheless learned human languages.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 13425
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | 5
|
post reply
|
|
Quick story. Back in the old country, before WW2, my grandfather, who was an itinerant coppersmith, was traveling away from his village, between towns, and deep in a mountain forest, he fell ill and fell off his mule, Marko. He collapsed on the ground, passed out, it started to snow, burying him. Marko left him, walked back to his village, to his house, and bashed his head upon the door until my grandmother opened. Seeing riderless Marko, she got a group to look for my grandfather, and -- Marko saved his life. Lassie!
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8746
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | 6
|
post reply
|
|
Dogs and cats, the main animals I have experience of living with, certainly
show the traits that, if they were seen in a human, would be called grieving.
I think to express that as anything but, is to diminish what they are capable
of, or experience.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6984
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | 7
|
post reply
|
|
Marko the mule! Three cheers!
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6984
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | 8
|
post reply
|
|
Re: the article— what an astonishing paragraph. Animals regularly
demonstrate what we call grief, paying the social costs of depression and
sadness. “But we can’t call it grief because… unspoken bias prevents us
from completing that sentence.”
What else would explain those behaviors in those circumstances from our
own genetic cousins?
Wild.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 13425
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | 9
|
post reply
|
|
My father told me that whenever my grandfather was way down at the bottom of the mountain, he'd call out -- "Marko!" -- and the echo would reach up and up and up, and Marko would even so distantly always bray back in response.
Our animal friends...! I mean, animal to animal friends, of course!
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 137418
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | 10
|
post reply
|
|
One of my favorite quotes: Dogs have masters, cats have staff.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Dave Kopperman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4231
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | 11
|
post reply
|
|
I've always been a little baffled by scientific resistance to the idea that most mammals have some kind of emotional interiority. Maybe it's just an inherited blind spot from Western religious traditions or being generally uncomfortable with the idea because of our position on the food chain. But it mostly makes me feel like no scientist has ever lived with a pet; you only need to observe them for a little while to realize there's a lot going on there.
Case in point: we put our cat Alfred down two months ago, and his brother - litter mate! - was nin a clear funk for the better part of a month, and pooped outside the box daily for two weeks after, and always in the spaces they used to share (the carpet under the dining room table).
Honestly, if 'statement pooping' was a socially acceptable form of expressing grief, I'd have happily left many piles in protest of COVID denialism after my dad passed.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 137418
|
| Posted: 02 November 2026 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | 12
|
post reply
|
|
As I wrote in “A Flame About This High” decades ago, there is no Nobel Prize* waiting for the scientists who prove higher intelligence in animals. Show that cows have the same intellectual capacity as an average human five year old, and our history is transformed into a slaughter that reduces the Holocaust to a blip. Slavery would pale in comparison to our routine abuse of our fellow creatures. _______ * no Trump jokes, please.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |