Essay On Nonhuman Animals

Most people associate feelings and emotion with only human beings, not with nonhuman animals. Less than 41% of people believe that nonhuman animals have emotions and are capable of displaying and acting on them, similar as to what humans would do (Livescience). There are many signs pointing towards the conclusion that nonhuman animals are also sentient beings. Specifically, scientists said that all vertebrates are in some way sentient beings, ranging from birds to fish, and reptiles to mammals. Animals are able to express their varying emotions through audible sounds, body gestures, and animal-specific stereotypical behaviors. We can detect different emotions from animals based on the sounds that they make, such as laughing or chuckling when happy, or groans and various different moans when upset or disgruntled. Studies showed that different animals laugh when tickled, specifically young orangutans and monkeys, even rats, showing signs of pleasure and enjoyment. Humans also give off sound when being tickled, to show our pleasure and excitement. Dogs are somewhat different in that respect. Although dogs give off audible sounds when being amused, it’s not the same as the laughter that rats, humans, and other monkey species make but it is more of a huffing sound that make when engaged in play or just generally happy.
As I previously stated dogs make huffing sounds when they are joyous, but a study showed that when they are taken back to the shelter, they may let out something somewhat similar to a human’s disgruntled sigh, but more times than not, they will become very silent and calm, and to me silence is the loudest sound. The animal that is most similar to human signs of grief are elephants. Recently, I read about and watched a video about and young elephant that was rejected by its mother, the young elephant cried for hours on the ride back to an animal refuge. (ABC