meet Natasha:

Kids aren't in the cards for us, so Natasha is our daughter. See that look in her eye? She's very mischievous. She also loves people - whenever the doorbell rings she runs to the front door. We call her our "greeter".

I've had lots of pets over the years - dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, fish, mice, rats. The worst loss was our pet rat "Felix" - rats have incredible personalities and can become very attached to people. When she died of lung cancer - she couldn't breathe and went into a panic, running up to us as if begging for help. She died in my hands, gritting her teeth, it was awful. After that I never wanted a pet rat again - they only live for 3 years, just enough time to become a member of the family and then they die. Dogs and cats are better choices.

There is a very interesting scientific account of animal consciousness in the book "Consciousness: an Introduction" (by Susan Blackmore). There is debate surrounding consciousness and cognition in animals because of their limited language abilities, but often strong memory skills. There is also reason to believe that different animals experience different sorts of consciousness, because of differences in their sensory apparatus. Imagine what your consciousness would be like if you couldn't see color, but you could detect infrared signals.