Dogs 'failed' a self-awareness test... until we tried the right kind of test

Awareness, especially self-awareness, is very difficult to study.  Self-awareness evolved among our animal ancestors and is found in their descendants today. Its presence can be detected using the ‘mirror test’ — but a 'urine test' worked better for dogs

Self-awareness evolved among our animal ancestors and is found in their descendants today. Its presence can be detected using the ‘mirror test’

"The real is the rational" declared the great German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. 

The universe, according to him, is a world-spirit working its way through history towards knowledge of itself. With his philosophy, he believed, it had reached a pivotal moment; the world had become self-aware and had begun to understand its own nature.