Unpredictable as Animals. They Are More Unpredictable

¶ … unpredictable as animals. They are more unpredictable than animals, unless you include wild animals. Domestic animals are really very predictable. For that matter, if one knows anything about wild animal behavior, their actions are fairly predictable as well. A terrified horse will always run; he has not claws to fight, for example. But let's investigate the behavior of domestic animals. Consider the cat. The cat will always seek a warm, soft spot to lie down. If it's chilly, the cat will seek the sun coming in the window.

If it's too warm, the cat will seek a cool, dark place where it can rest its eyes and be relatively comfortable while it does what it usually does, sleep. When it awakes, it will stretch. It then will do one of a very few things. It might groom itself. Or it might go to its food bowl. Or it might meow to be let out if it's an 'outside cat' or it might go to its litter box. It might climb the furniture, too, to entertain itself.

If you've observed many cats, that's about the range of their activities except for playing with a ball of string or a similar toy if a human offers to play, or maybe coughing up a hairball. Consider the dog. Dogs seem to have a bigger range of behaviors than cats. They won't always seek the softest spot. Sometimes they lie on a soft, warm bed for a while, then they might get down and lie on the hard, cool floor.

When they wake up from a nap -- and they take them frequently, too -- they might stretch, or they might not. They probably won't ask to go out because, being smarter than cats, they know what time their owner takes them for walks. If they have a fenced yard, they might ask to be let out there to chase birds. If the owner is eating something, they might beg for some.

If they are really bored, they might go get their soft squeaky 'froggie' toy and toss it around a bit, pretending it is some bit of wild food they are killing. All of this is very predictable. It is also predictable that most dogs will bark when the UPS driver pulls into the driveway. And they also bark at mail delivery people. They bark at people they don't know or who seem to them to be 'attacking' their home.

That's what the noisy UPS truck doors probably sound like to a dog. They growl menacingly at people who are really up to no good, and sometimes bite them. They usually wag their tails for people they know and like. They don't have moods. That brings us to people. People are completely unpredictable because they have moods. But let's deal with the cat- and dog-like behaviors of people first. When a person wakes up from a nap, that person might stretch.

He or she might jump out of bed, run through the house and scream at a neighbor to stop that racket with the buzz saw. Or the person might saunter into the bathroom and fill a tub full of scented bath bubbles, slip into it, and almost fall asleep again.

If the person is hungry, he or she might rummage around in the cupboards for a snack...and then take fifteen minutes deciding whether potato chips or a chocolate bar are less likely to cause fat bellies and heart attacks later in life. Or he or she may just say, the heck with it, and call for pizza delivery. When the pizza comes, it might be the wrong one -- no pepperoni, but tons of pineapple. The person might say it's OK and try the pineapple.

Or the person might pitch a fit and refuse to pay and call all his friends and say how lousy the pizza delivery is. But he might do either one of these things not depending on his nature, like a cat or a dog, but on his mood at the moment. The same pizza that got thrown.