18 Wednesday, February 27, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Paw Prints Jodi Schneider McNamee Columnist Self-awareness and pets A lot of research has been built up around self-aware- ness 4 the ability to recog- nize the self as distinct from the environment. It9s having consciousness and knowl- edge of the self as an indi- vidual. Humans have self- awareness and we9re able to recognize our body, our feelings, and our thoughts as our own. But an unsettling ques- tion has hounded human- ity for generations: Are we alone in our self-awareness; do other animals have a sense of self, too? Because you can9t ask animals what they think about, the classic way to study self-awareness in animals is with the mirror test developed by Gordon Gallup, Jr. in 1970. To con- duct the test, an animal9s body is secretly marked, for example by placing odorless red dye on the face, and then the animal is given access to a mirror. If he understands he is looking at himself and not another animal, he might touch the mark while look- ing in the mirror or turn his body to better see the mark9s reflection. That would indicate self- recognition, which hints at self-awareness. Self-recognition in a mirror may seem obvious to humans, but it requires cognitive sophistication. We are not born with the abil- ity to recognize ourselves in mirrors. Young infants may be fascinated by their reflec- tion, but they view this as a social interaction with what appears to be another baby. Somewhere between the age of 18 and 24 months, babies begin to understand that they are looking at themselves in a mirror. Over the years many psychology experts have used the