So my dog can think?!?!?

Consciousness, while mysterious, has always been associated with humans. After all, only human brains are big enough to handle the day to day emotion and stress that we experience...right?

Maybe not. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains that there are some definitions of consciousness that animals fulfill. The most common two, the sense of consciousness involved in the difference between a creature being asleep/in a coma as opposed to awake, and an organism's ability to respond to the environment, are both present in animals. But what's on a deeper level?
The Stanford Encyclopedia goes on to reveal two types of consciousness that require debate: phenomenal consciousnesses, the idea that there is something "it is like" to be a part of a certain species, and self-consciousness, basically "Theory of Mind" in our household pets. Unfortunately, both these claims aren't very research friendly, as we don't exactly have technology to get inside a pet's brain and see what they're thinking. But the introduction of the idea that animals potentially recognize themselves much deeper than we thought is phenomenal.