Radiolab - Animal Minds

In this hour of Radiolab, stories of cross-species communication. When we gaze into the eyes of a wild animal, or even a beloved pet, can we ever really know what they might be thinking? Is it naive to assume they're experiencing something close to human emotions? Or is it ridiculous to assume that they AREN'T feeling something like that? We get the story of a rescued whale that may have found a way to say thanks, ask whether dogs feel guilt, and wonder if a successful predator may have fallen in love with a photographer.

Duration: 59m
Broadcast on: 26 Nov 2021
Audio Format: other

In this hour of Radiolab, stories of cross-species communication.

When we gaze into the eyes of a wild animal, or even a beloved pet, can we ever really know what they might be thinking? Is it naive to assume they're experiencing something close to human emotions? Or is it ridiculous to assume that they AREN'T feeling something like that? We get the story of a rescued whale that may have found a way to say thanks, ask whether dogs feel guilt, and wonder if a successful predator may have fallen in love with a photographer.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

WNYC Studios is supported by ODU. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. ODU solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. ODU is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out ODU at ODOO.com. That's ODOO.com. Wait, you're listening to Radio Lab from WNYC. Hey, it's Lillu and Lillu and Radio Lab. We both sound a little scratchy, but you're not going to hear a lot of us today because we're traveling back into the past for a very special, warm, fuzzy, yet complicated episode from the archives. But first, we wanted to tell you about something new and shiny. Yeah, which is a new and shiny delivery mechanism for this show that we love so much, which is you can get it on YouTube now. Yeah, so Radio Lab has recently made this whole massive YouTube channel, which has some kind of amazing things from over the years. It has animated shorts. It's got music videos from collaborations we've done with different musicians. It's got live shows. It's got a ton of stuff, but the best thing of all, I think, is it has these bundles. It has these themed lists, including a starter kit. So for people who are maybe more recent to the show, you can just quickly just race, gallop through all our favorite episodes. That's youtube.com/radiolabpod. So as we were putting that together, thinking about what are the really special radio labs, we started thinking about this oldie but a goodie, which is called "Animal Minds." Are you in this? I've heard a voice. I am. This is like baby reporter me. This is one of my favorite assignments of all time. Don't spoil the top though, but it's so good. But I was just starting out and they said, "Hey, can you go record this almost surreal sounding event, which I didn't quite believe took place and that's how it kicks off." Don't spoil it. Okay, I won't say anymore. There's a good tussle ahead and let's just let the radio labors of the past take us away. So where are we? We're at church. In a church? Oh, that's different for us. It's not usually where we start, we're in a church. Cathedral, really, a huge cathedral, upper Manhattan, St. John the Divine. We've got an organ. The preacher is preacher. Congregation, of course. Couple thousand people in the pews, at least. Your basic Sunday service. Except today. You've also got here it comes. Dogs. The reason we begin here is because today the church is filled with dogs.

Transcription truncated.