So today i was thinking about how easy it was to talk to animals, I'm scary good with animals, and i realized something amazing, we can actually talk to animals. People always say they wish they could talk to animals but they are thinking of the magical communications that involves no effort on their part, just talk human and the animal automatically understands. This is something brought on by things like the newer Doctor Doolittle movies and The Wild Thornberries and we forget that animals can be easily talked to. The original Doctor Doolittle portrayed a more accurate and quite realistic theory of "talking to animals", this lead me to realize that the psychology of the movies changed in a fascinating way. The original DD required the human to learn the animals language, for him to make the effort, and for him to stoop to the animals "lowly" level. The fact that humans are superior to other animals, and the doctor accommodating the animals, psychologically differed from the future movies where the humans were born or magically gifted with the ability and not only did gaining the ability require no effort but neither did using the ability. Anyways, it's really cool to realize that people can actually easily communicate with animals if they are patient enough to observe and learn the animals behavior.
Well, we all share ancestry and all have basic body language, that non-humans understand (or misinterpret).. But one should never anthropomorphize a non-human. (an obvious exception being Bonobos, which are as anthropomorphic as a non-human could ever be, psychologically) A good example being a human smile, which is seen as aggression and fear in many animals, like wolves and chimpanzees. communication between different species is quite commonplace, and shouldnt really be viewed as special, as extravagant and extraordinary as it can seem. It's quite common and natural. Visit a forest, and many animals will actually sound alert calls, designed to not only warn their own species, but all other species that share their own habitat. It has been proven that many of these animals actually intend to warn the entire forest, and not just their own species!