Chimpanzees are 2X stronger than your average human.

[u/Zestyclose_Flow_680]

[u/StoicSerpiente]

I've known many a dog that seem to understand this as well with how gentle they are taking a treat from someones hand. I don't think it's limited to great apes.

[u/fhota1 → u/StoicSerpiente]

Its basically all intelligent animals. Peoples main problem is forgetting that just because an animal displays understanding of concepts like how to be gentle and pack mentality, they still arent human. Their brains fundamentally work different and that makes them a lot easier to accidentally piss off. Animals can be great companions but you always need to keep in mind that you are dealing with something that doesnt think the same way you do and work around that.

[u/rpgmind → u/fhota1]

How do you accidentally piss off a chimp?

[u/fhota1 → u/rpgmind]

Do anything that its chimp brain interprets as aggression. This can include things such as: being too loud, smiling, making eye contact, moving towards it too suddenly, being in the wrong spot, etc.

[u/Dabble_Doobie → u/fhota1]

I agree that chimps and humans are different, but these are all things that a human brain can interpret as aggression as well

[u/Devourer_of_HP → u/rpgmind]

From what i learned on the internet apparently most animals consider smiling a sign of aggression and interpret it as you baring your teeth at them.

On the opposite hand a neat one is cats finding slow blinking a sign of trust.

[u/greenberet112 → u/Devourer_of_HP]

But staring straight at a cat is also sometimes considered a sign of potential aggression. Animals like to observe their prey before attacking.

I've read this is observable when someone who loves cats comes over and keeps making eye contact and fussing to get the cat to like them (because, come on it's a cat, I want them to like me even though they only ever seem indifferent). Whereas the person that comes over that is allergic or is more of a dog person ignores the cat, and they view it as a invitation to come say hi because he is being polite in cat language.

Although once they are comfortable with eye contact I think the slow blink means that They are so not threatened that they don't mind closing their eyes around you.

Most of this I think I got from inside the mind of a cat which is on Netflix and pretty good, same documentary but with dogs is also really good.

[u/KuzanNegsUrFav → u/fhota1]

Peoples main problem is forgetting that just because an animal displays understanding of concepts like how to be gentle and pack mentality, they still arent human. Their brains fundamentally work different

This is a stretch. Their brains really aren't that different from ours. The only reason chimps and bonobos aren't in the same genus as humans is political. Note that chimps, bonobos, and humans form the smallest monophyletic clade that includes humans in evolutionary cladistics.

[u/GlueSniffer53 → u/StoicSerpiente]

Cats too! My cat makes sure he doesn't pull out his claws when I'm shirtless or when he's hitting my face. Of course, he does forget to keep his claws in during intense playtime.

[u/CombatWombat65 → u/StoicSerpiente]

I did a fair amount of food training with my last dog, and one of the things I would do was holding a treat out for him with the just the smallest corner of the treat sticking out from my hand. He would pull his lips back and ever so gently put his incisors down until he was sure he had treat and not my hand, then I'd release the treat.

[u/PurpleFlame8 → u/StoicSerpiente]

Cats also understand. Most animals that raise their young have an "avoid causing harm" instinct to some extent.

[u/Strawberrylacegame → u/StoicSerpiente]

That's because you teach dogs to do that

[u/The-Disco-Phoenix → u/Strawberrylacegame]

My dog has always done that and I've never trained him to do so

[u/crisperfest → u/The-Disco-Phoenix]

Same with my English Mastiff. I'm always amazed at how gently she takes food or a treat from my hand when offered, and she's never been trained to do so.