Animals

A selection of creatures from the animal kingdom - some real (a dinsoaur) and some maybe not (a cockatoo).

What is an animal?

Scott: An animal… I don’t really know how to explain it… An animal is a thing that’s sometimes useful and sometimes just does nothing and is hardly ever useful. Well, all animals are useful.

Helen: Sometimes cockatoos can be bad.

Scott: Cockatoos don’t exist.

Helen: They do, dumbhead.

Scott: No-one wants to hear the ‘D’ word on my blog.

Helen, what is an animal?

Helen: A tiger.

Scott: An animal is a tiger?

Helen: I know an animal – a cockatoo. And an elephant.

So what’s the difference between an animal and a human?

Scott: They can’t even speak.

Some can.

Scott: Like, name one.

Helen: An elephant.

A parrot or a mynah bird.

Scott: I don’t know what a mynah bird is, but maybe they can speak in movies.

So is the only difference between us and animals speech?

Scott: And some animals can fly – and and animals are sometimes big and sometimes smaller than a medium size human.

Are animals friends or enemies?

Scott: It depends on which animal it is.

Helen: They’re not friends.

Scott: They are – they give us food.

Helen: No they don’t, cows give us milk.

Scott: Pigs give us food, cows give us milk and cheese, don’t they Daddy?

What do you think, Helen?

Helen: No.

Scott: Milk, cheese and yoghurt.

What do tigers give us?

Scott: They just sort of give their meat and you could use their teeth for knives.

Are there any animals you know that aren’t real?

Scott: I’m sure cockatoos are made-up animals.

Why?

Scott: Well, because… I don’t… They’re from a book and not all animals from books are real.

So, you’ve read books about dragons and unicorns and you think cockatoos aren’t real?

Scott: I just thought it – I don’t really know about it.