In the past two weeks, we’ve had two sheep die, and I had a chance to pay close attention again to how sheep react to the death of other members of the flock.
Since being on the farm, I’ve observed this a score of times. I am still determining what animals think.
This subject is complex, and there needs to be more consensus among biologists, vets, researchers, and animal lovers. Most of the people I know with animals insist that their animals think, communicate with humans, and grieve in human ways.
I’ve never seen an animal grieve in human ways.
I see animals who get upset and confused when a community member is sick or dies. But I’ve seen no evidence that animals are aware of their mortality or the mortality of other animals, or that they understand or fear certain death.
They know when they are sick and when other animals are gone, but that’s as far as I’ve seen it go. A dog doesn’t know the difference between a pack mate going to the vet or dying and never returning.
They are creatures of tradition and continuity, as are sheep, but in my experience, they quickly recover, reorganize, and return to eating and their new rituals of behavior.
The need for clarification is understanding what is thought and what is instinct. Most animals live by instinct, not thought.
I feel we know less than we think about animals, what they are thinking, and how most of them grieve or mourn if they do. I can tell what my animals are feeling but not what they are thinking. They aren’t human and don’t have our vocabulary or knowledge of history and patterns.
I’ve heard all those stories about border collies spending years at train stations or gates waiting for their dead humans to return. I’ve had four or five border collies die on my watch, and I’ve never seen one grieve for a lost companion or kennel mate. They get upset when their familiar rituals change.
Every border collie I know who lost a human recovered when they had more sheep to herd.
Of the hundreds of thousands of dogs rescued from Hurricane Katrina, I don’t know of one who died of loneliness or separation anxiety. They were content once they figured out who their new bosses were, the new rules, where they lived, and who would feed them.
Those are the dogs I know. Zinnia will miss me until someone gives her a steak, and she will be fine.
I know only what I can see, not what I can project, what I need and want to feel, or what other people tell me to feel.
I found several good research and veterinary sites on this; here is one of them for people interested in the subject.
I’ve been living on a farm with cats, dogs, sheep, chickens, and cats for more than a decade. I’ve seen animals react sharply to the death of other animals, reorganize their communities, gather around dying sheep, ignore the death of other sheep, and abandon the sick to keep predators far away.
In the cases of Suzy and Socks, we saw them get sick suddenly, and I saw what seemed to be the concern of the other animals; they sniffed them, gathered around them, and seemed to protect them. They were aware something was happening.
Then, as the animal got close to dying, she went off to the farthest corner of the farghest pasture to die. We interrupted that out of concern, not wanting either one of them to be assaulted by predators or die alone in the cold.
That was our concern; I’m not sure it was theirs.
When these sheep were shot, it was clear the animals heard the shots, reacted, and watched.
Once the body was collected and removed, we gave them extra hay and grain to calm them down, and they got about their business of re-organzing and switching leaders—now, Asher and Ishakoff are in charge, that is clear.
It’s important for me to understand what I know and see and what I don’t know and don’t see. These animals are not like children to me, and they are not humans.
They have their way of grieving, thinking, feeling, and reacting. The more I see, the less I think I know for sure. I’ve never had a dog with separation anxiety and never had a dog that gave up dinner for too long over the loss of a pack member.
One of the remarkable things about animals is their adaptability and acceptance.
In this way, they are nothing like humans. I have never seen an animal mourn in a human way. I know about elephants, but no one can say whether they are confused and anxious or acting on instinct when mourning, according to the Hunan understanding of the term.
I hope to listen, observe, and learn more. Only Mother Nature has the answers.
The books I have read need to be more conclusive. We can’t know what an animal is thinking because they can’t tell us, and we can’t read their minds in a recognizable language.
I’ll follow this science as it advances; I know that no animal researcher ever got a grant to conclude that animals differ from humans. That makes me wary of the significant modern trend of turning animals into children and furbabies.
I do see that animals react to the death of others. They are aware of it, and they get over it quickly in every case I’ve seen, from dogs to cats to chickens to sheep to donkeys.
Of all the animals, our donkeys have reacted the most intensely to the death of pasture mates. Unlike sheep, they react vocally and visibly for days. Then, they move on with their lives. No animal can survive on mourning; they survive on food, which governs what I know of their emotions and habits.
What are they thinking?
I don’t know. Donkeys suffer when alone, whether out of fear of predators’ habits or awareness; we don’t know.
The people I most respect are the ones who admit that they don’t yet know what animals think. They’ll get there, but they are far away.
