Citing the verse, “Who teaches us from the beasts of the land, and wisens us from the birds of the sky,” the Talmud explains that certain positive traits had the Torah not been given, we could have learned from animals: modesty from the cat, respect of another’s property from the ant, and so on. …
However, the modesty of the cat (which covers its excrement) is not a result of the cat’s awareness of the divine omnipresence impelling it to modesty, it is in part of the cat’s immutable nature.
By the same token, one might learn the practice of netilat yadayim (ritual washing of hands) from the raccoon, which seems to wash its hands in water before eating, but the raccoon does not do this because it is mandated by the Shulchan Aruch.
This is not a practice deriving from a Godly soul’s desire to fulfill the divine will but an inherited characteristic in the nature of a particular animal.
—Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz