My iguana used to try to eat pictures of tomatoes and strawberries (he loved red food) if they happened to be decorating his dinner plate. I wonder what he would’ve done with an iPad.
You’ll want to stand up and cheer when you see what happens to the jidrool who tantalizes a frog with make-believe ants.
And please ignore the naughty chihuahua. I’m sure that wasn’t in the script.
that was good for a chuckle or two.
The frog’s revenge was the best!
Frankly, I could think of cheaper things to expose to the claws of a dog than an iPad’s screen, although their screens are nearly indestructible. That frog was priceless.
I sometimes wonder how all of our tech gizmos affect our pets. Frequently, my cat will lie down on top of my iPad. I’m not sure if she’s trying to keep me from using it, or just ensuring that she gets some attention when I go looking for it.
You’re spot on Unknowable. Every time I see a video of an animal pawing at the screen of a tablet or phone, I wonder if the people involved are spoiled, wealthy, or ‘entitled’, treating expensive items with such disregard. Everything seems to be disposable these days.
An iPad can sot anywhere from $300 to $900, depending upon options chosen. They are great for many tasks and I can understand the desire to teach children to use them, etc. but they can be broken. Screens are scratch resistant, but a sharp blow can destroy them. Bending an iPad can also happen and that can cause the screen to de-laminate.
That frog was pretty good at the game. I think he should be entered in a competition — although he might decide to attack the scorer.
Myself, I’ve always disliked pet “toys” that never allow the pet to catch the toy — for example, the laser red dot. Animals develop a high level of frustration at being constantly eluded by a prey that disappears just when it seems to have been caught. Come to think of it, we react the same way to constant frustration.
Amphibians and reptiles don’t understand the concept of play. We put an artificial turtle in with our painted turtle once and the poor guy went into an endless courtship ritual. We never expected that to happen.
We, as a species, tend to anthropomorpose the animal kingdom quite a bit. Animals, all animals, lack symbolic language and therefore do not possess an essential tool in dealing with imaginary concepts. They may imagine something, such as having a dream about finding a favorite food in their bowl, but they can’t conceive of the notion of that food being imaginary. They would wake from the dream, travel to the food bowl and maybe search nearby, but they are not capable of categorizing that vision as imaginary.
OTOH, they don’t tend to perseverate over spilt milk and whatever disappointment they experience is short-lived. As opposed to myself, whom as a small child, dreamed of large pennies, about 5″ in diameter, which could be used to purchase vast quantities of candy. To this day, nearly sixty years hence, I am disappointed that these did not materialize in real life.
So, when an animal sees a moving image on the screen of an iPad, or a potential mate cast in plastic, they have no other course but to take it seriously. In time, they may learn that the object is inert and lose interest in it, but until then, they will react as if it were real.
That having been said, my cat knows that the red laser dot on the floor emanates from a tiny flashlight. If we’re playing the laser dot game and I shut it off, she immediately looks at the flashlight. I may think of the dot as imaginary prey, but she probably sees the dot as something fun (and harmless) to chase and, as always, she appreciates any sort of positive attention from the human that feeds and cares for her.
Hmmm… inability to conceive of something as imaginary… Could this be why liberals can never understand that socialism doesn’t work?
You’re assuming that liberals are on as high a plane as animals. (Oooh, that wasn’t nice. I was a liberal once, myself.) 🙂
Great observation. 🙂