A Capacity for Joy

Outline:

1. Animals indulge in playing may be a form of practice or of learning to perform tasks.

2. Animals tend to play with something which interested them, like swings to the elephants.

3. Alaskan buffalo enjoy playing on the ice.

4. Animals like play with objects:

4.1 Komodo dragon play with a shovel

4.2 A meter-long wild alligator play with the drops of water falling from a pipe into a pond

4.3 Gorillas and chimpanzees enjoy playing with dolls and spend time in imaginative play

4.4 Dolphins play with a feather

5. In a few instances trainers have successfully taught formalized games to animals.

5.1 Elephants understand throwing objects

5.2 Dolphins were trained in the skills of water polo

6. Animals sometimes find playmates across the barrier of species

6.1 red kangaroos and dogs

6.2 Dogs and cats

6.3 Dogs and human



Summary

Play, which seems to be both a sign and a source of joy, has been increasingly studied in recent years. Theorists argued that animals indulge in playing may be a form of practice or of learning to perform tasks. A numerous of evidences show that animals exercise developing social, neurological, or physical capacities during they play with objects or other campanions. Animals tend to play at a particular palce where they are living, like Alaskan buffalo enjoy charging down to the shore and plunging onto the ice. Furthermore, animals might like playing with objects which is interesting to them. For example, captive animals in the zoo do enjoy playing with many stuffs around them. Furthermore, the object play may becomes social play. In oceanarium, dolphins are enjoying playing feather together and learn how to join the game in an implicit rule, which is still under investigation by scientists. In a few instances trainers have successfully taught formalized games to animals, for example, teaching elephants to play simple cricket in the circus. Except playing with their own species, animales tend to play with other animals. This point of view is supported by the relationship between dogs and human. Play, laughter, and friendship burst across the species barrier.