humour in animals

[toolman]

hi,

 

just wondering if animals find things funny or humourous?

[Coral Rhedd]

Yes. When I lived on a ranch there were feral pigs. These were domestic pigs that had escaped and gone wild. The hunters (accidentally) shot and killed a sow and brought me her piglets to raise. I bottle fed them and they grew up quite tame and atttached to me. The male developed a strange habit. When I would be hanging up clothes on the line outdoors, he loved to sneak up behind and grunt loudly. This would startle me and I would jump and sometimes even scream if I was sufficiently surprised. He would then make a strange chortling noise and run around me in circles in apparent glee. I took this for a sense of humor or at least the joy of playing a practical joke. He thought it was much funnier than I did.

 

I found pigs to be the most intelligent animals of my personal acquaintence. I never noticed that stupid animals (chicken, sheep) seemed to get much fun out of life -- except the rooster when he raped the hens.

[Sayonara]

It would be interesting to find out exactly what that piggy behaviour was all about.

[Coral Rhedd]

Sayonara, I took a cue from your question. I thought it might be dominance behavior on the theory that even pigs must rebel against "Mom," but when tried to google dominance behavior/pigs I got too many sites on George Bush too wade through.

 

Although I am not very good at searching the internet, even I could see the reasons behind this outcome.

[Wequetequock]

My dog and I developed a catch/tag/tug of war hybrid, where I'd throw a cloth frisbee, he'd catch it, etc., etc.

 

It didn't take too long for him to figure out that I'm (a) slow, and (b) a klutz. So he decided that he could charge me with the frisbee in his mouth, flip the frisbee up in front of his eyes when he got close, and do a buttonhook around me. "See, I'm blindfolded, and you still can't catch me, you tomato can!"

 

Ain't nothin' happy like a happy dog is happy.

[YT2095]

Corvids have a basic sense of humour also

[Spyman]

I have 30-40 years of experience with dogs and I belive all animals share the same feelings as us humans: happy, angry, fear, sad and so on...

 

As the IQ of the animals increases, (between different races), they also start to have more memory, dreams, sense of humour and so on...

 

Just because we, (humans), have the highest IQ it doesn't mean they, (animals), can't have senses or feelings at all, instead they just have a little less of it.

[Aardvark]

Corvids have a basic sense of humour also

 

I'm now waiting on tenterhooks for a good anecdote.

[Phi for All]

I'm now waiting on tenterhooks for a good anecdote.

YT2095 has a raven that quotes long passages from Poe to him.

[Aardvark]

YT2095 has a raven that quotes long passages from Poe to him.

 

I'm finding that pretty disturbing on several levels.

[Phi for All]

I'm finding that pretty disturbing on several levels.

Disturbing is humorous... to a raven.

[YT2095]

ROFLOL, nicely put! )

[Dak]

my pet rats used to love being tickled on the tummy, and would make wierd chky-chky-chky noises. i saw a program on psycology once, with that bloke with the mustash (BBC) and when the chky-chky-chky noise is recorded and slowed down, it sounds exactly like 'heee-heee-heee', and apparently the eletrical activity of the rats brain during tickling, and the phisiological spasms that cause the chky-chky-chky sound are pretty similar to the eletircal activity of a humans brain during tickling, and the phisiological spasms which result in the 'te-he-he' sound.

 

plus they always liked playing. and to them, my hand was 'one of the rats', and anecdotaly i believe they injoyed playing with me as much as i enjoyed playing with them, exept for when they bit, which, due to the differenses between rat-skin and human-skin, i wasnt too fond of.

[Lance]

I think these are really just testimonials, we dont know if animals find things funny.

[AzurePhoenix]

It's not clear whether you do either

[AzurePhoenix]

Disturbing is humorous... to a raven.

the wildlife center where I volunteer has a talking raven (I'm fairly certain he's of a demonic origin) that sits over the door ready to crap on our heads or drop a bowl of seed, vegetables, or water, and in the evenings he swwops out of the shadows to flap his wings in our screaming faces. Then he flies to the back and chuffs loudly at us, a totally different sound from his angry cawing or hungry squawks.

 

I just thank my lucky stars he doesn't quote poetry.

[RedAlert]

Ain't nothin' happy like a happy dog is happy.

 

ROFL! Reminds me when I saw this beaver rolling around on the mud....he was making funny grunting noises and whacking his tail like crazy. He seemed to be happy to me.....maybe he had just heard that Paul Martin misunderestimated George Bush which caused both of them to explode simultaneously....darnit I drank to much coke...:hiccups:

[Insane]

I think humor is one of the highest forms of intelligence (I don't mean humor caused by physical means, ex. tickling)

 

I find the pig story very interesting (and cute). If the pig was indeed laughing... hahaha, a laughing pig.

[j_p]

It would be interesting to find out exactly what that piggy behaviour was all about.

I believe it is called "play".

 

I suspect that humour is very species specific; no matter how much we like our pets, we won't get most of their jokes.

[AzurePhoenix]

Someday we'll have little hearing-aide translator thingies, and we will come to realize that their jokes simply aren't funny to our minds. They will be offended by our failing in humor, and thus they will stage a revolt, and the Age of Swine and Ravens will overshadow the Earth.

[j_p]

Someday we'll have little hearing-aide translator thingies, and we will come to realize that their jokes simply aren't funny to our minds. They will be offended by our failing in humor, and thus they will stage a revolt, and the Age of Swine and Ravens will overshadow the Earth.

 

You've fallen for that scenario?

 

The truth is much darker.

 

Those of us who get the Raven jokes will realize that those of you who get the pig jokes are obviously a degenerate subspecies and set out to annihilate you.

 

When we succeed, we will be so grateful to the Raven that we will set him up as a god; a dark and brutal [but shiny and very stylish] age will descend upon us, and we will spend our lives in hot smokey dive bars listening to Blues.

 

And the cats will laugh and the pigs will fly.

[AzurePhoenix]

Well duh. Besides, I already formed an alliance with the raven (I did say he could talk) My survival is ensured, along with a lifetime supply of bacon.

[j_p]

Ensured or assured?

 

Oh, no, I have descended to Quality humour; I have to go to sleep.

 

Tell the raven to watch out for those pigs.

[Sayonara]

I believe it is called "play".

...

 

What it's "all about" in functional, behavioural terms. Not what it's called.

[j_p]

I disapprove of strictly functional interpretations of behavior of all animals; they are so often based on cultural assumptions that are then given scientific validation by the theories which they underlie.