Yes, that’s right, animals are pretty straightforward. Provided we can perceive their communication, it just takes a little attention intuition and experience. I also have some rather cheeky little birds that come into the house every day. You don’t need an LLM to hear whether they are scared, frustrated, joyful, affectionate, combative, etc. They even ask questions like “May I?”. A small bird with a brain the size of a lentil has the full spectrum of basic emotions.
(Everybody knows the problems in pure text, non body-language non verbal-sound communications.)
You can hear that mosquitoes are sneaky, bees are peaceful, goats are stupid, and you can see when octopuses are afraid. And you can hear that donkeys are broken horses. 
However, my dog doesn’t get frisbees or balls. When I throw a stick, he just looks at me questioningly. Both sides still have something to learn… 