It is unscientific to name them as if they were people. And such stories at best are merely anecdotal. Beginning in the seventeenth century, modern science constructed a mechanistic paradigm which views animals as automata or machines. From Descartes to sociobiology and behaviorism in the present, the modern tradition cast animals in the role of brutes or machines who can neither feel nor think. Students trained in this paradigm quickly learn to avoid reference to the subjective life of animals unless they desire ridicule.
Journals typically refuse to publish papers that allude to animal thoughts or emotions.
Today, this situation is changing decisively as science undertakes an exciting paradigm shift that embraces the study of animal emotions and minds. Until the last few decades, human beings have languished in the Paleolithic Era of their knowledge about animals. Only in the 1960, for instance, when Jane Goodall went to Gombe National Park in Tanzania, Africa, did human beings learn that chimpanzees make and use tools. Not until 1983 did researchers discover that elephants communicate with ultrasound. Having misled us for so long about animals, science is initiating a revolution in our understanding.