XPost: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian, alt.animals.dog, rec.pets.dogs.behavior   
   From: doxielover_2004@yahoo.com   
      
   Let's try to understand the meaning of awareness and its difference from   
   knowing, instincts and learned behaviors.   
      
   Dogs smell and hear and taste and jump above tall grass and disregard   
   pain sometimes and roll over to say "I give up" because of instincts.   
   These things are the results of long term and short term evolution... and   
   have nothing to do with awareness.   
      
   A Doxie is a smell/sight hunter... he will always go to ground first and   
   if finding no scent will use his eyes... because he is small he will   
   jump... if he did not do these things, if his ancestors did not do these   
   things, the breed and those qualities would not exist.  A speedy dog will   
   be more apt to hunt prey that runs, a tall dog would do well in   
   grasslands, and terriers go to ground.  All survival strategies which are   
   the product of interaction between environment and genetics.   
      
   A baby will cry when it is hungry, and smack its lips, and suck on a   
   nipple or just about anything put near its mouth.  But the baby has no   
   self awareness, and does not even realize it is a human being.   
      
   When I moved to Florida my Doxies who used to hunt mice and woodchucks   
   adapted to new environs by hunting geckos... which they immediately spit   
   out because they tasted awful... but they never stopped hunting them.   
   Why?  Because they were the right size and moved.   
      
   A dog has primitive 'knowings' about things because they are reinforced.   
   He learns that when hearing a particular sound food is in his dish.  Put   
   something inedible in there and he will think the same thing.  He hears   
   because he cannot exist without hearing, he reacts because all life   
   reacts.  Single celled animals get hungry too.   
      
   Get it yet?  If not we cannot progress beyond this stumbling block.   
      
   I'm trying,   
      
   Barry   
   >     You have failed to explain some things:   
   >   
   >  If you think dogs aren't aware they can smell, why   
   > do you think they deliberately smell?   
   >   
   >  If you think dogs aren't aware they can hear, why   
   > do you think they deliberately listen?   
   >   
   >  If you think dogs aren't aware they can see, why   
   > do you think they jump up above tall grass deliberately   
   > so they can see?   
   >   
   > Here's a bonus failure question for you Goob:   
   >   
   >  Why do you think dogs are not aware that they   
   > are in pain, when they are in pain?   
   >   
   > Super extra bonus failure question:   
   >   
   > Why do you think dogs are not aware that they   
   > are hungry, when they are hungry?   
   >   
   > Is it all voodoo to you Goo?   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)