Are dogs musical?

I don't know if this is what you meant by your hidden question comment, but, I have heard it said that art, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.

I understand and appreciate your 'disagreement', Savak. I find that, whenever I write about a 'Creator' (in the universal sense), I sometimes find myself writing about the traditional 'God' (an intelligent person who created us in His own image) and sometimes about a 'creative and all-pervading "goodness", not necessarily with intelligence but with an inexorable purpose which we go against at our peril' ... or something like that. Sometimes I have to say that, if we were created 'in the image of' something, then the appreciation and idea of 'beauty' must be something we were given as part of that image; at other times I can only see the idea of 'beauty' (and 'love' and some other emotions) as being something that humans have as part of our inherent (and immature) psychological make-up. Maybe this particular discussion is no place to expound (or argue) what I believe but the question of 'art' remains: Should 'art' always be 'beautiful' or pleasing? Shouldn't it rather challenge us ... not always in a way which is comfortable?

I'm sorry for your loss. I too, lost my beloved pet and decided not to replace her. I am at a point in my life that being responsible for myself is a full time job alone. For the most part I agree with your statements except for one. Although flowers are indeed practical, I choose to believe that the creator also had a sense of beauty in mind. Otherwise why make so many varieties with so many different colors? Surely the nectar could be dispensed without the variety, right?

That is a really classic example of the fun that artists have with each other! Thank you very much for the link! I hadn't realised that 'fauve' was the French for 'beast' and, though, I know the genre 'Fauvism', I hadn't connected it with 'paintings by beasts'. Of course, the background of the 'painting' was obviously done by a human and the brushing of the donkey's tail was clearly random. I have seen a book called 'Why Cats Paint', which is in a very similar vein of humour and has sold very well (I am told) and has even inspired a semi-serious Museum of Non-Primate Art (MONPA): http://www.monpa.com/wcp/ There is certainly evidence that elephants 'draw' with their trunks in the dust and some captive elephants do get apparent satisfaction from being given brushes, paints and a canvas. Chimpanzees, too, can produce paintings which apparently please them (and sell for quite high prices). I think that you have maybe seen the real point of this discussion (which was hidden) and have answered appropriately, so you are a candidate for 'BR'

It is my turn to thank you for the MONPA link : I have spent half an hour on this site and I send now the link to some friends working in museums. This pearl is online since 1999 and I never heard about it. It is really too good : I laughed from the "About" to the "Upcoming Exhibitions".

I forgot : "To go to a place that you do not know, you have to take a road that you do not know". The "creativity" of an animal is limited to transposition or analogy. It is not true creativity.

That is so cute! We say that animals don't cry (and they don't produce tears like we do, it is true) so how can they understand that crying is something humans do when they are sad? Animals DO try to respond to our moods, however. My dog was always bothered if I or anyone seemed abstracted or absorbed and would very often bring his ball or toy and ask me to 'play'. In fact, it seemed to be his mission in life to stop humans being so serious about stuff. We had to learn to 'play'! I really don't think that (in his case) it was an attention-seeking thing, either. As long as we humans were happy and contented and not studious or abstracted or troubled or arguing, he would always be 'doing his own thing' ... lying down or off in the garden or something. It was always when he perceived a disruption that he asked us to be attentive. Now, perhaps that was a direct emotional reaction - our mood bothered or troubled him because it wasn't normal or how he liked his environment to be and maybe he was simply 'teaching' us (as he would have taught his own puppies) how we should behave, I shall never really know. I do know, however, that cats and dogs do regard us as 'family' and, I think, as dysfunctional family who they have to 'care for' as if we were immature animals. Maybe we are.

Same goes with our dogs...

All of our pets are special, of course. Most of us love them more than our children, I suspect! The relationship between dogs and humans is very interesting. If we pay attention, we can understand their language (in terms of different barks and body language) which is actually quite complex and expressive but quite different from the way we think of our own language. In turn, a dog understands our language ... but they read our faces and attitudes and tone of voice much more than we realise. Uploading photos (and other things) is something that I wish that MyLot would come to grips with more. It is still very basic when you compare it with what other sites can now do. Wouldn't it be nice if we could embed videos and speech into our discussions!

My dog knows when I am going out. She smells the perfume I use! I play tricks with her. She is taken to the back of our house and kept busy till I am way out of her sight! Uploading pictures was not such a problem earlier. I used to upload images with almost every response of mine.

Parrots are extremely intelligent animals, Professor, even though their brains are small and they are so different from us. It sounds as if you don't have a great deal to do with it but I am glad that your granddaughter likes it. Does it talk, I wonder? Parrots are well known for copying sounds very faithfully and realistically but they can also learn to make those sounds appropriately, which I think shows intelligence of a sort. I'm so sorry to hear that your grandson was bitten by a street dog. Those animals are very often twisted and misused by us humans so that they are no longer naturally 'wild' and no longer friendly to humans, either. We don't have 'street dogs' here because the law requires that dogs should have an owner and any feral dogs would be quickly caught and put down by the authorities. We do have dogs, however, who are 'owned' and can sometimes be dangerous. It is very sad when a dog, which was always said to be docile and friendly (by its owners) suddenly turns and harms someone. Even though we have 'domesticated' dogs for thousands of years, they are still sometimes wild and savage beasts in their hearts.

I really do think that that dog was performing and knew exactly what he was doing. I think that he was emotionally involved (though perhaps not in the way that a human would be) and that he consciously pressed a key and sang according to its pitch and 'copied' what he had seen of a human reading the music and performing accordingly. In part, it was imitation but I'm certain that the dog (and many of the other animals in those videos) are actually doing something conscious and, perhaps, inventive, of their own. Is that really 'art', however?