Do animals know when they're pregnant?

[AintNobodyHereButUsChickens]

Late night musings.

Do animals know they're pregnant or is labour/birth/the subsequent babies a shock when it happens?

I also find it mad that some people think animals don't know things we do, like we're intellectually superior. We certainly have the upper hand, but that's all. Whales and dolphins for example and known to be highly intelligent. But yes I believe all living beings have thoughts and feelings to some degree.

So true a male dog will know weeks before if a female is coming into season they must give off a scent. And then a female will only stand when she is ready normally day 11 from the first day of season I think.

I'm not sure. I asked my cat when she knew, but her reply was a bit ambiguous (although the way I phrased the question might have been a bit vague in cat terms, so it's hard to get right to the nub of these issues).

I think so.
My only real experience is my horse who I bred. They’re pregnant from 11 months and I noticed a change in her behaviour after about 6 weeks. She went from being sassy boss mare to staying right out of trouble.

Reverted back post baby! Think she was protecting herself and her baby.

They don't have self awareness, so they don't. They are just driven by instinct.

One of my cats taught itself to use the toilet. That is not instinct.

I suppose in the same way as early humans would 'know'. They would have found a mate when they were in season and then felt changes in their body.

@sashh "
One of my cats taught itself to use the toilet. That is not instinct."

I didn't say they can't learn how to do things. And actually, a safe place to pee is something cats do seek instinctively. What I am saying is that they have no self awareness. They react instinctively to their bodies. Hence the best making and so on.

*nest

This cat knows its owner is pregnant.

How could you possible know that?

I imagine it must be instinctive
Like why does my dog bury food ,nobody has ever taught her or want to try and roll in things ?

@SarahAndQuack Here you go. Great apes are the only animals that show self awareness convincingly- there is disputed evidence for a couple of other species. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9881685/#:~:text=A%20basic%20level%20of%20self,of%20internal%20thoughts%20and%20emotions.

The PP means that it’s instinct - as in, no one taught them, it’s just there.

That's a fascinating article, but doesn't really support your case? It's a survey, and includes various summaries of past studies, including:

The above studies strongly suggest self-awareness in bonobos, dolphins, and the bluestreak cleaner wrasse, all of which are social animals.

It appears that the ants used their mirror reflection to see the unusual blue dot and attempt to clean it. If true, this behavior would indicate self-recognition. Additional studies are needed to verify these findings.

The rhesus macaque was originally thought to be incapable of self-awareness, along with several other species of monkeys (Gallup, 1970). However, newer research indicates the contrary but only after significant training.

With regard to octopuses, it says Thus, concluding a lack of self-awareness based on their performance in a visual test may not be fully reliable. Further self-recognition tests, preferably modified to better suit octopuses, are suggested.

In another study The authors of both studies highlight the need for alternative approaches in measuring avian self-recognition.

The author states A basic level of self-knowledge is guaranteed in animals that pass the mirror test, but it is unknown if they possess advanced understanding of private mental states and also Another area of future research is whether self-recognizing, non-human animals can know their internal mental states such as emotions. A basic level of self-awareness is confirmed to be present in non-human animals that conclusively pass the mirror test, but it is unknown if this can be extended to include their knowledge of internal thoughts and emotions.

What the paper is actually talking about is the need for more research, and the difficulty of extrapolating from experiments about self-recognition, to conclusions about self awareness.

This is interesting. I'm pregnant now and our cat has been so clingy with me the past couple of months. He's always favoured me over DH but recently he's rarely been out of arms reach.

Quite. My tomcat ADORES kittens. We had to keep a couple en route to my parents, and he was misty eyed over them, and showed nurturing efforts to our female cat too, thinking they were hers. We've got a baby now, and he loves the baby, understands that it's some sort of human kitten. Whilst he's terrified of adults, he couldn't get enough of my nephew.

He might not know how they get here, but he definitely seeks out young creatures.

That is adorable. Cats are so nurturing.

@thecatsthecats our corgi girl adores puppies. We rehomed her from a backyard breeder and she'd had 3 litters and 2 c sections by the age of 3. She lost the last litter so they decided to cut their losses and sell her on (terrible I know). She took our rescued 1 year old under her wing and "brought him up" to be a proper dog and she fusses over any puppy she meets outside like a doting relative, even puppies twice her petite size, she still knows they are babies.

It is nothing to do with whether they are pregnant or not. Humans and bonobos are the only mammals which will tolerate mating all year round. All other female animals need to be 'in season' in order to accept a mate. The rest of the time, neither they nor the males are interested.

Japanese macaques, too.

@Cats are so nurturing.

I adore cats. But "nurturing" is not the word that would leap to mind to describe them!

They are, though. When I feel down, my cat seems to feel it instinctively and come for extra cuddles. Plus, as PP said, the cats who build nests for pregnant women. I don't know why cats have the reputation of being aloof, they really aren't. They just aren't demonstrative in the same way that most dogs are.

I agree, @VanityDiesHard. I think if we are going to say that animals act on instincts (and I think they do), we can't have it both ways and say that cats are weirdly lacking in natural instincts too. Cats have been domesticated for millennia; they are also perfectly able to suss out that their humans provide food and safety.

We had kittens that had been hand-reared; when my daughter cried they would go to her and start grooming her as they'd groom each other; when I was upset one of them used to come and pat my face with her paw.

I accept we can't say 'oh she understood you were sad and wanted to cheer you up,' because we simply don't know. But she was responding in a socially-legible way, and doing so because it's part of a nurturing interaction (the cat is nurtured by the human; she nurtures the human in response, because it's beneficial to both).

I would say that some animals know, as they often make nests in preparation.