There is a lot of debate about whether animals are capable of higher-level thought. There is strong evidence that suggests that they are not completely instinctual, but there is a lack of evidence of metacognition. One school of thought is that when the glucose and other levels are detected by the hypothalamus and other parts of the body and brain, animals just instinctively do what they know will get them food. Another school of thought is that the animal will realize that it should eat and thus embarks on its quest to find food, whether it be hunting or whatever.

As elit has said, there is ALOT of controversy over this, people dedicate their LIVES to try and find this out. Wait abit maybe we'll find out ;)

Both. Well, for dogs at least. I'm pretty sure dogs have an equivalent to words. Probably ours. So instead of "I'm Hungry.", it may be "Food?". Or instead of "I'm bored.", it could be "Play?". Just really simple things. Unfortunately, not everything processes the way it's supposed to. Our two-year-old chocolate lab has never quite gotten the meaning of "Out!" (meaning "Get out of the garage!"), but our one-year-old black lab puppy (74 pounds already) has gotten this and retained it long ago. So for our 11-year-old dog, it's not "Play?" as much as it is "Ball?". Or for our cat, "Tapeball. Now.". Or equivalent. Have fun with that! EDIT (12 Oct 2006) --------------------------------------------- Okay. My answer seems to have created a bit of confusion. Please allow me to clear a few things up. I'm not saying dogs are capable of cognitive thought, but I am saying they are capable of something that may be what we call "the first step" toward it. I'm also not saying that they process language. However, they do process sounds that have been, over time, associated with certain things. "Food", for example, is learned. They have to be taught. Then again, so do we, but that's beside the point. We have a language. They really don't. Instead, they pick up a few commands that we teach them to respond to, but I don't think it's entirely instinctual. I gave the example of our two-year-old chocolate lab as an example of this. If it were entirely instinctual, he would have picked it up within the first couple weeks, like our black lab puppy did. Instead, it's been around a year of using the same command, and he's still as clueless as the first day we used it. Also, the thing about cats is that they don't "ask", like dogs do. They just demand. Our cat knows the word "tapeball" to mean, well, his tapeball (one of about thirty). So when he wants to play, he brings it to someone, drops it, and "Meow!" demands. To him, it probably sounds something like "tapeball" (but I'm speculating here), but to us it *looks* more like "tapeball" because he sitting right in front of it. No, dogs and cats don't have a language. No, they don't process everything into one. But I think they are capable of a few simple word-associations (some apparently more than others), though this is extremely limited compared to ourselves.