MARILYN CORNWELL: Marilyn's Photos - May 29 2026

Continuing on the theme of being middle old (70 to 80 years old) and what it means in terms of progress: here's something that is known now. As a child I thought this was the case: animals possess sentience. We figured this out through our dogs and cats and birds. Over the decades the scientific community has also figured this out. And yes - crabs, lobsters, and fish feel pain, and need to be treated properly. Surprise! Throwing lobsters alive into steaming pots does cause an excruciatingly painful death that they fully experience.

So here we are this many decades later accepting that mammals and birds have clear emotions, social bonding and complex cognitive behaviours. It took quite a while, though. Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals in 1872 was a key milestone and that seems like a long time ago to me. It was in the last 60 years that conclusive research into animal emotions came about. We have progressed in our scientific and behavioural research methods.

With the acknowledgement of pain, comes an increase in Veterinarian bills. We prescribe pain medication for cats and dogs after medical procedures. What about this information that before the late 1980s - many doctors believed babies could not feel pain or would not remember it. They performed major surgeries with only muscle relaxants or paralytics instead of true anesthesia. I can't imagine being a parent having my baby operated on without anesthesia - some sort of barbaric throw-back in the medical mindset is how I consider this. It took research in the late 1980s to prove that babies experienced pain, and things changed quickly for human babies. The veterinary professional began recognizing and treating animals for pain starting in the 1980s.

In this area of sentience, Millie spends an hour or so on Thursday afternoons visiting residents in one of the long-term care homes in the area. Isn't it ironic that dogs don't have human language and visits don't involve conversations, yet eyes light up when they see Millie each week.

Look at little Millie as a puppy compared to Millie now.