Anothropomorphism

As humans, we try to apply human values to the natural world. This is wrong. Evolution, for example isn't purposeful, it's just a series of happy accidents. Rabbits don't hate wolves, and chickens don't hate raccoons, and no animal hates humans. There's fear, of course, but that's an instinct bred into us through natural selection: the fight-or-flight instinct is part of our genetic code, not a learned behavior, just like the broken wing display of killdeer, a type of long-legged wading bird. When killdeer build their nests, which are flush to the ground and almost invisible, if a predator approaches they hold one wing out like it's broken and make high-pitched, panicked piping noises, trying to draw the threat away from their eggs, since they look like an injured and therefore easy target. Again, this isn't a learned behavior: it's instinctive, and it only happens around the breeding season.

As humans, we see a killdeer try and draw away a predator, and we see maternal love. The killdeer is only interested in the continuation of its genes, which isn't even a selfish urge, because selfishness requires the need to know better. Nature is purposeless. The urge to see your genes continue is selected for because it means that more of the offspring survive--it's not even a conscious decision for animals. That's where humanity differs: what we show over an infant is maternal love because it's more than the genetic drive to ensure survival--although that, of course, counts for a lot as well.

Not every animal displays behaviors that we would call "mothering." Many species don't parent at all, instead just releasing their eggs and sperm, or pollen and seeds. Again, this is just how things are: it's a reproductive strategy that has worked at least marginally functionally, and therefore ensured the continuation of the species--at least while conditions remain stable. Most birds species (around 90%, far more than mammals because both a male and female bird are able to equally care for the young, unlike mammals, for example) form monogamous pair bonds that raise young cooperatively. This is not an "admirable" trait, because it's simply something that worked from a genetic standpoint--because birds aren't human, we can't apply moral standards to them, even if we apply them to our own society, wrongly or rightfully. Almost every species of bird that has social monogamy also has considerable amounts of extra-pair copulation--cheating, if you want to use our anthropocentric and anthropomorphic term. Almost all of them exhibit intraspecific brood parasitism, where a bird places one of their eggs in the nest of another couple, causing them to raise the genetic inheritor of the other bird. It's not an "evil" or "amoral" act, because the birds don't have the intelligence or awareness to be doing it for any other reason than that it works and that it is an inherited, genetic trait.

So when a cat washes itself or a kitten, it's not an inherent value for cleanliness, it's an instinct that comes from a genetic urge. It probably keeps or kept the cats healthier by washing away parasites and preventing infection. Similarly, when a cat kills far more birds and rodents than it could possibly eat, it's not a sign of greed or avaricious malice, it's something that was bred into the cat by humans: cats were domesticated to keep rats and other pests out of stored grain. When your dog waits for you by the door, it's because of ingrained instincts about social hierarchies. Wolves aren't "noble," and neither is any other animal. Weasels aren't tricky and devious. It's all just illusions, cast by society and human perception and misconceptions--anthropomorphism, just another reflection of anthropocentrism.