The Ideas Of Dogs.

There are a million ideas that spew from the imaginations of people, and even of dogs and cows, to a certain degree. Humans are more able to convey those ideas than are other animals, but the ideas persist nonetheless.

I might have an idea in my business, "Would a robot that has art deco integrated into its metal parts have a market?"

Whereas a dog may have an idea "What would happen if I ate grandma's couch?" A cow doesn't look very thoughtful, as slow and cumbersome a beast they be, but surely there must be such ideas that "If only I could jump this fence, that luscious alfalfa over there would be mine!"

I'm not sure I can ever find out about these ideas, being so difficult to live the life of a cow or a dog, but I can imagine being much more incredibly ignorant than I am now and having only the barest consciousness of the world around me. Something like a fish. Although whales look fish-like in most ways, they are not, and are probably very likely to having ideas of their own, although with no hands it is very unlikely that they will ever implement any of them.

Dogs are certainly not high on the list of intellects, yet on a tall pole from microbe to man, their intelligence would be very high. Just not as high as chimpanzees, dolphins or a few other top minds on the Earth.

But put dogs in a pack and they seem to pool their limited minds into a super mind that can do just about anything short of design rocket ships or build houses (they still don't have the skills needed to manipulate finely detailed machinery). But 10 dogs has exactly 1/100th the fear of 1 dog. And all that yapping and barking that goes on in the pack -- "Let's eat Alice the cat!" -- "Let's go steal Farmer John's boots and chew them to shreds!" -- "Let's go near the School and sniff each other's rear quarters -- it seems to embarrass all those elementary school teachers!"

Yes, I know these are more like just my own lonely ideas -- not those of animals. But I can't imagine having such active and inquisitive personalities like dogs or weasels or squirrels and not having the slightest idea about anything.