I don't know vet. Animals live in the present, they are not muddled down with all this "emotional baggage" that we humans hold on to. People project their own emotions on to animals. Animals don't think of memories of their past or future. They may display a conditioned response to situations that seems human emotion like to people, but nothing like human emotions.
You are describing behaviors they exhibit to a stimulus.
This is the beauty of them and one of the best leasons they can teach you. Live for now.
I'll be honest with you, I grew up on a hog and cattle farm with over 5000 animals. I work in a world of animals held in captivity. This is one of those subjects I tend to mull over and over and over and over. Basically I think I'm trying to understand, and prove to myself in my mind that we aren't doing something to unnecessarily stress species capable of way more intelligent thought than we give them credit for. I don't know the correct answer and I'm not trying to claim I do. I'm just trying to put my thoughts out there, feel free to chew on them. I'm sure there are some big holes in my thoughts, I'm just not seeing them. I also think that without a quantitative value you can actually measure (A number) there is no way to prove correct or false, the only thing you can do is relay experiences and try to deductively reason through them.
I disagree with animals living for the present to a point. Its real easy to simplify things and say animals "live in the present". Personally, as I get older, I'm starting to think thats a human cop-out, although it does have some semblance of truth that cannot be denied. In terms of domestic animals---which by and large are prey species except for dogs and cats---they do live for the moment, but when you consider wildlife, prior experiences can drammatically shape their behavior and their lives. Domestic species can and do learn behavior and anticipate future stimuli---depending on the species. Guide and other service dogs know how to anticipate what is going on around them to respond appropriately. Horses are a prime example of learned behavior affecting their actions---for example a good cutting horse working a group of cattle will learn which steer is going to cut back on them and they will anticipate it, moving to intersect that steer. Now the horse is under the guidance of the rider, so there is a point of contention, its not an absolute.
Wildlife are a completely different world in my opinion, and the more I work with certian species, the more I'm convinced they absolutely do not "live in the present" as we tend to group domestic species. One of the most stunning examples of this I've ever seen first hand is a juvenile (5-6 years old when it was first seen) chimpanzee who would take his own monkey biscuits (his food) hide it from the other chimps and then feed it to the water turtles that swam in the moat around their zoo exhibit. This behavior was not taught by a human, but was taught by a teenage male chimpanzee and there is no idea where this chimp learned that behavior. The thing is to do this, the juvenile had to preplan, set aside/hide food from the other chimps who would have eaten/hoarded it and then plan on how to feed the turtles without the other chimps taking the food from him. This takes a considerable amount of preplanning. Combine that with there not being a discernable reward---why would one animal feed another like that? its a pretty complex behavior.
Another example of something similar in a more domesticated species is my african grey dropping her food so that the dog will crawl under her cage attempting to eat it, then screaming the dogs name loudly to make him jump, bang his head, and run away, and then laughing like a maniac. That bird has done this with different dogs now for years. Again, whats the reward for the behavior? Its pretty complex as far as I'm concerned.
Just my thoughts at 1 AM. Who knows, I may be blowing smoke out my ass.
