Gossipping dogs

I've been making my way through Montaigne's essays for the last month or so (and, yes, dead white males are really interesting), and I was thrilled to find that he thought it was presumptuous to assert that there was any large gulf between humans and other animals. This is something I think about a lot, in my own rather aimless way. Here's a little of what he has to say on the subject.

"How does he know, by the force of his intelligence, the secret internal stirrings of animals? By what comparison between them and us does he infer the stupidity that he attributes to them?

"When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?"

He goes on to note that, since humans and animals don't share the gift of speech, neither of us understands the other, and it really cannot be determined that this is a deficiency in the animals, any more than in us.

"We must notice the parity there is between us. We have some mediocre understanding of their meaning; so do they of ours, in about the same degree. They flatter us, threaten us, and implore us, and we them."

I think that humans, as highly verbal animals, assume that speech is the highest form of communication. I also think that this assumption causes a blind spot in our perception of the ability of other animals to communicate with each other.

One of the more well-known examples of non-verbal communication is the dance bees do to tell other bees just where they found the nectar. Observers have also deduced, by observing the behavior of elephants, that they grieve for their dead. But I think that, on the whole, our inability to experience the world as other animals do puts us at a disadvantage in understanding how they might communicate.

A weird flight of fancy follows.

I got to wondering whether other animals with one or another highly developed sense might use it to send and receive messages. For example, the dog experiences the world through its nose to a very high degree. When you take your dog for a walk, what piques his or her interest? The dog sniffs everywhere. But you notice that there are certain places en route that are more interesting to the dog than others. The dog sniffs, then the dog pees in that same spot. The stronger the smell, the more likely your dog is to sniff, then pee. And you notice that your dog never empties his bladder in just one place. A little bit here, a little bit there.

Now, suppose your dog can subtly control the chemical composition of his urine to leave messages that other dogs can understand with their superior sense of smell? What if every fire hydrant is a message center? Does every dog in America know all about Michael Vick?

Pure speculation, of course, without a shred of evidence, but it illustrates my idea that our own form of communication dominates our idea of what communication is to such a degree that it's hard for us to imagine any other.

Anyhow, I once tried to write a story about a scientist who discovers this secret of dog communication, and through chemical analysis, discovers the hidden world of dogs. I've never succeeded in writing fiction, so if you like the idea, it's yours.