Dogs, mirrors, self awareness...

Barneys first experience with his reflection came when I went to an ATM
machine. He saw his reflection and totally flipped out at the other dog.
Over time he came to understand that this other dog in the glass wasn't mean
and he didn't have to go into attack mode........LOL Brandy never paid much
attention to mirrors or reflections.

Celeste

dh@. wrote in message ...
From what little I've seen about it so far, it looks
to me like some people actually believe dogs are not
aware of themselves simply because they don't appear
to recognise their reflection in a mirror. To me that only
means they don't understand a mirror, and has absolutely
nothing to do with whether or not they have a mental
concept of themselves.

The facts that they have a mental concept of their
objects, their territory, their urine, their body, etc, are
all indications that they have a mental concept of
themselves, imo.

The fact that they are aware of different individual
beings is a very strong indication that they are aware
of themselves as an individual also imo, especially
when considered along with the fact that they have
a mental concept of the other things they encounter.

Question: Has anyone ever managed to get a dog
to understand that it can see its reflection in a mirror,
and if so, did it appear to experience a great revelation
about its own existence at the instant it learned to do so?

On Mon, 05 Sep 2005 19:15:17 GMT, "Spot" wrote:

Barneys first experience with his reflection came when I went to an ATM
machine. He saw his reflection and totally flipped out at the other dog.

So we know he has the ability to recognise reflected images.

Over time he came to understand that this other dog in the glass wasn't mean
and he didn't have to go into attack mode........LOL Brandy never paid much
attention to mirrors or reflections.

Celeste

I remember fooling with my dog and mirrors as a kid. From what I remember
the dog showed interest at first, and then my impression was that he figured
it out and didn't care about it any more. To him it just didn't mean anything
after he figured out that it wasn't real animals. I saw a cat I had do that with
the TV. When it first saw birds on the screen it was very interested, but after
it learned they weren't real it didn't care any more. Birds outside, that it could
see through the window, were a different matter...and it knew about the pet
door too. Not understanding or caring about a mirror certainly doesn't mean
animals have no awareness of themselves imo. The very idea seems absurd.

dh@. wrote:

On Mon, 05 Sep 2005 19:15:17 GMT, "Spot" wrote:


Barneys first experience with his reflection came when I went to an ATM
machine. He saw his reflection and totally flipped out at the other dog.


So we know he has the ability to recognise reflected images.

We know he didn't recognize HIMSELF.


Over time he came to understand that this other dog in the glass wasn't mean
and he didn't have to go into attack mode........LOL Brandy never paid much
attention to mirrors or reflections.

Celeste


I remember ****ing my dog as a kid.