Human vs. Animal Survival

Warning: long post!
Anyway, the subject that I wanted to post about is this. I am currently watching a show on the Discovery Channel called Human Body: Pushing the Limits and it has been making me think about the discussion we had in class about the difference between humans and animals. The show has already given several examples of people who were able to call out extraordinary strength from their bodies while in the midst of life-threatening situations. This has made me realize that there is a fundamental difference between humans and animals: when both are faced with life-or-death situations, in general humans are more driven and compelled to stay alive than most animals are. For example, the show gave an example of a firefighter who was able to accelerate faster than a racehorse to escape a fire-cloud (where the air is literally burning; fire-clouds precede the actual flames of a forest fire). This man's brain sent messages to his muscles, blood vessels, and organs that forced them to go their extremes in order to save the man's overall life. In contrast, in the case of a burning horse barn, even after you rescue all of the horses from the barn, if you do not contain them then they will simply run back into the flames. This is because they understand their stalls to be places of relaxation and safety and are not able to process the fact that they could be killed if they do not stay away from the fire. Animals have their own responses to life or death situations, of course, but I do not believe that they are as pronounced or effective as humans' responses. The fight or flight instinct is strong in all animals; they will run whenever possible but in the event that there is nowhere to run, they will fight. Once injured, however, they are not able to sustain themselves to the level that humans can. They simply seem to give up. I had a cat who followed this example almost exactly. My beloved cat Maxwell passed away in the fall of my freshman year after nearly a week of being ravaged by a debilitating illness: his body was literally shutting down from the back feet upwards. It began as what seemed like a sprained ankle-decreased flexibility in the rear left leg-and progressed to complete paralysis of both rear legs and the loss of bladder control. Even though it would take around four days for him to die, even after the first day I noticed a pronounced lethargy and bad attitude in him and he stopped eating early on the fourth day. Near the middle of the fourth day he began crawling into tight spaces or dark corners, an attitude that I immediately recognized to mean that he had finally given up hope and was essentially looking for a place to die. I had to have him euthanized to spare him the pain of a slow death of starvation. I believe that if I had not been there to encourage him and tell him that he would be all right he would have given up sooner. My point with this anecdote is that he no longer had the will to live and even that though his body could have kept on functioning, his brain made the decision to allow his body to die. Although this is the case with some people, particularly elderly individuals who no longer wish to fight to survive everyday, the majority of humans push to keep themselves alive. Need proof? Cancer victims. If a cancer patient decides to end treatment and allow him or herself to die, then the hospital cannot deny him or her. We do not see this very often, however, because humans have an ingrained desire to survive that is, quite possibly, stronger than that which is ingrained into animals' minds. Cancer patients have hope that they will be treated. They look towards the future whereas animals can only look into the present. In addition to the capability to hope, I believe the single most important factor that makes humans try so hard to stay alive is the possibility that humans may have more to give to this earth than animals ever could. Animals concern themselves with themselves and their young offspring while humans with so much else. Just look around for proof.
If anyone has taken the time to read this I would like to thank you. I know that it was long, but I really did have a lot to say!
The funny thing: I didn't even talk about everything that I wanted to.