I have this theory that some animals (e.g. cats and dogs) do in fact recognize that mirrors are reflections, but they just don't care about what's in the reflection. We are fascinated by the idea that we are watching ourselves, but that's a somewhat meta concept and animals just don't care. Just because an animal doesn't care about reflections doesn't mean it necessarily feels like it needs to rub red paint off its reflected self or even really make that connection.
This seems right. I work with monkeys, and some of our monkeys have mirrors attached to their cages. They don't use the mirrors to inspect themselves, but they do seem to use the mirrors to surreptitiously spy on other monkeys. It's likely that a monkey can quickly figure out that the thing in the mirror isn't another animal and when they move, the thing in the mirror moves, but drawing the connection that they are the thing in the mirror seems quite a bit harder.
