Response to Sarah's blog "animal language"

My italics are messed up-- I can't get them to turn off- please disregard the italics...

Humans have made it natural for domestic animals to easily learn tricks/specific responses to human demands through breeding over the many years. This is an acquired trait of the animal. The dictionary defines the word acquire as 'To gain through experience.' Dogs (oh yay, no more italics...), dogs gain obedience (dictionary defines obedience as 'the act or practice of obeying; dutiful or submissive compliance'), from experience, through time experience is gained and that's what breeders accomplish, which is why some breeds respond better/worse to certain things, they obey differently to different circumstance better or worse than other breeds. When a dog learns to fetch, he is acquiring the act of fetching., he is gaining through experience the act of fetching.

Not sure Sarah, what you mean by: "Something natural has to do with what comes easily or what can commonly happen amongst a thing. Whether it is learned out not I don't think has anything to do with if it was natural or not."

One can look at the word natural two different ways. Natural, including humans, and non-human natural (everything that would exist without humans --(this could become an extensive conversation, so the gist is trees are non-human natural, buildings are natural.)

Either way humans are a natural thing and what we create is natural. When we domesticate animals (breed them over a number of years, teaching them responses, and them evolving to how they have been bred... (pit bulls were bred to fight eachother- for violence, hence they are a violent breed, other breeds have been bred for hunting, hence they are better at hunting than other dogs, etc.) So I think it is technically natural for 'dogs to be able to respond to human language'-- specifically talking about commands, but of course any animal would respond to a sound within the range of sounds they can hear, and the human voice and languages are sounds, sound waves are produced, so it is natural for a dog or any animals to respond to the sound wave they hear.

As for the dog learning our language, I would have to disagree. To learn the language is to understand what each word means and how they are put together, their function, why, what they mean compared to other words, etc. I don't disagree the dog responds to things people around him/her do or say, but I don't think the dog has learned the english language, or whatever human language. I am sure the dog and your family, Sarah, communicate wonderfully, but I am not quick to say the dog understands our language the same way we all do to be able to communicate specifically (classification wise- remember our in-class convo "can't communicate through music- 'it is 3:15pm, time to leave class'").

My Question: Has anyone ever seen an animals take part in dancing? when music is being played...