What is an animal and what makes it different from a human?  Religious people will probably say an animal doesn't have a soul.  Science however doesn't recognize the existence of anything spiritual since they can't measure it, weigh it or otherwise prove that it is a material thing (probably because  it isn't).  So science has to find another way to distinguish human from animal.
      Science used to say man uses tools and that distinguishes him from the animals.  But now we know that:

• monkeys will use sticks to get ants out of an anthill
• seagulls will drop clams on rocks to open them
• a crow not only used a wire to pull food out of a tube, but even bent the wire to form a hook

just a few examples of animals using tools.

    Science then said animals don't have a sense of self, only humans do.  A program I saw recently on the History Channel proves otherwise.  The program was mostly about an elephant doing abstract art while an art critic watched and was surprised at how good the paintings were.  Then the important experiment.  A large mirror was put into an elephant pen.  When you  do this with most animals, they think the reflection is another animal and never figure out what it really is, but the elephant clearly figured it out rather quickly.  First it looked over the wall behind the mirror and realized there was nothing there, so the mirror was some kind of trick.  Then it stood in front of the mirror and made odd back and forth movements, clearly observing that the elephant in the mirror made the same strange movements and, last, they taped a white X near the elephants eye where he couldn't see it but , apparently, could feel it.  Then the elephant was let out to the area where the mirror was.  When the elephant saw the white tape on the elephant in the mirror, he immediately raised his trunk to the tape on his head.  The elephant clearly recognized that he saw himself in the mirror and that means he has a sense of self.  

    A number of studies in recent years show that animals are much smarter than we thought they were.  I wonder though, is that because of improved methods of testing intellegence or are they actually getting smarter?  One thing I know from personal experience.  Every dog I've had quickly learns to understand a dozen or more words of human language, but I don't speak a word of dog!