I grew up with a border collie, and so probably *do* think of dogs as being people, albeit very stupid ones that can smell fear. Thing to remember about dogs is that our ancestors bred them to think of humans as a kind of Super Dog, so if you just act like you outrank them things'll be fine. Talking to them may seem strange given that they can't speak English, but they (at least seem to) comprehend quite a lot. I'm not even sure that cats understand the concept of *names*. Oh and if a dog rolls on it's back it's a sign of submission: it's not saying it wants a belly rub, it's saying that it trusts you not to try and bite it's throat out.
Cats disturb me slightly because of the way people interact with them. Most domestic cats seem to live in a state of enforced kittenhood, and as the commenter above said the body language is weird (took me ages to work out what was up with the squinting gesture). Also of course there's the toxoplasma gondii and obvious psychopathy.
The creatures that scare me the most would have to be birds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfvEgWINUFc), because (a) some of them are tool users and (b) they look like tiny dinosaurs. Then again I'm probably suffering from island tameness: we wiped out anything remotely dangerous centuries ago. Creepy crawlies also freak me out (my theory is that people are hard-wired to dislike small scuttling bitey things, because bites may get infected), though spiders are cool.
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timeasmymeasure
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Cats disturb me slightly because of the way people interact with them. Most domestic cats seem to live in a state of enforced kittenhood, and as the commenter above said the body language is weird (took me ages to work out what was up with the squinting gesture). Also of course there's the toxoplasma gondii and obvious psychopathy.
The creatures that scare me the most would have to be birds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfvEgWINUFc), because (a) some of them are tool users and (b) they look like tiny dinosaurs. Then again I'm probably suffering from island tameness: we wiped out anything remotely dangerous centuries ago.
Creepy crawlies also freak me out (my theory is that people are hard-wired to dislike small scuttling bitey things, because bites may get infected), though spiders are cool.