Animals and death

I just watched Hatchiko, a movie about a dog who for a decade went to the train station waiting for his deceased master to come back to him. While that is the extreme case, animals do indeed sense the passing of someone they care about as well, It seems they mourn all be it in their own way. The latest for me, and I would like to say the last would be my mothers dog Alphe, who would come running to look into the truck as I came to my sisters house, where mom had been staying, he would jump over my lap every time we pull up looking inside the car then giving that quizzical look of where is she? He would run into her bedroom always looking, and still looks out the door waiting for her to come home. Dads dog Zack whom I took in about three years before dad would die, seemed to take things a bit better, when his old companion Bobbit, my hound took her last ride, he looked out the door and laid there just looking for a bit. He would do the same thing when dad would not come home, look past me and lay on the rug just looking, I would wonder what goes on in their mind, but Im sure its something like ours, they know they are gone, but still hope for them to come home. It is not only domestic animals who mourn, there is evidence that crows actually hold funerals, crazy yet true. I remember a deer dad shot once, dads health was not good enough to make it up the mountain so I would climb up to finish the deer, the doe and buck who it was with I had to chase off, the doe would sniff his stiff body and still they only stood just in the trees and watched as I cleaned the animal. I guess it is just part of the cycle of life, it almost makes one want to be a vegan, yet there is also evidence that plants react to death as well, so were the Indians right and we are all connected? Maybe, but one thing is certain we surely should respect that of which we care for, as it most certainly respects us.