Scheming elephants and grieving orcas... What are they trying to do? What are they feeling? What is going on in the mind of a cat while she's saving her kittens from a burning building, or a pig who's running to his job at the hospital? Can animals think? Scientists have tried to answer this question for decades. In this book, award-winning writer Eugene Linden turns the question on its head and looks at what animals reveal about their intelligence and emotions through their natural reactions to the people and creatures around them. Talking to zookeepers, researchers, therapists and trainers, he has unearthed amazing and heartwarming stories, anecdotes of animal humour, game playing, deception, scheming and subterfuge, as well as tales of compassion, heroism and love. Whether in captivity or in the wild, in a zoo or a family backyard, animals must constantly negotiate the basic issues of their survival. And in these negotiations they show us - if we pay attention - everything about who they are. And quite a bit about who we are, as well.
