I think we do underestimate them
and base lots of our beliefs on flawed research based on people whating to think humans far superior to animals

I believe in evolution and I think emotions have evolved too
Personaly I dont think love is a higher emotion - I think it is something that will have evolved quite early on to make mothers care for their young and stuff
I cant prove my dogs love me - but their actions show love far more than any boyfriend ever has
When I smile they are happy, when I am gone they are sad. They hang onto my every word and movememnt
- I aint ever had a guy so unselfishly commited to me

I think they have some far better abilities than we have
Like they seem to have a really interesting memory
- remember how to get to places they have only been to once
Remember tricks or names of toys that I only part trained years ago
- infact when Ben was a tiny pup I named his toys as I gave them to him
I never thought he understood the names
One toy I had got him was a squeeky newspaper - he wasnt interested in it so it was in the toybox for a year

Then I was trying to teach him to put away rubbish (still havent trained that yet) I had a screwed up ball of paper
I said to him 'get paper' - usualy 'get X' means he picks up the last thing we were playing with
Nope off he ran to the toybox, pulled out the newspaper from the bottom and presented it to me
I dont remember ever calling it the paper - but I must have

and oh yes they know the sound of B's car

Emotions are caused by chemicals so all animals that have those chemicals running round their systems are going to get the emotions at a higher or lower level.

Thats why we eat chocolate----an ingredient (forgotten which one) mimics the 'love' chemical.

Sometimes dogs won't eat for a day or so when they are parted from their owners-----thats a kind of grieving I think?

rune

I've recently finished reading Stanley Coren's 'How Dogs Think' and I think we are lead to believe our dogs are dumber than they actually are. I think they are very perceptive and probably understand us more than we understand dogs.

Scientists and behaviourists say anthropomorphisizing our dogs is wrong and in some ways I think it is too as I dont believe in treating them like humans. However, I dont think attaching emotions to a dogs behaviour is necessarily incorrect.

I am definitely of the opinion that we underestimate how much our dogs understand and what they are capable of. Sense of time for one example. My dog knows exactly what time of day it is and what is likely to happen at any given point in the day. She will also remind me if I forget. Different cars and who is coming in them is also another thing she knows better than I do. I suppose it is true that we anthromorphise with our dogs, but I don't think that this is a bad thing as long as it does not go too far.

I do think that dogs are emotional creatures. They feel a strong attachment to their family members, both canine and human (and other animals in the family too). Dandy, Rio and Rogue are very close. Rio and Dan are particularly close and Dandy protects her when we are out by getting in between her and other dogs. You may think that he is just protecting his interests, but he genuinely loves her to death. They look visibly relieved and delighted to see one another (and me) if they have been seperated even for a few moments.

The very fact that dogs are individuals with complex personalities tells us that they must have thoughts and feelings. Of course they react and behave differently to how we do, but I do think that dogs are very in tune with human emotions.

Yes dogs have emotions. I think it's very silly for people to believe they don't. All animals have emotions. For instance, if a herd of antelope didn't feel fear, they would never run from a stalking lion.

A fantastic book that talks about dogs and emotions is Patricia McConnell's For the Love of a Dog. Highly recommended!

I might have thought the same...but I have SO many people who come training who say their dogs know when it is *Insert day* - on the weeks that we have off people turn up the following week and tell me how confused and upset their dog was....Maybe it is the people, but surely if the owner is making no effort to get ready for training (not getting the bag/treats etc) then the dog should not be able to tell the day and would just behave as a normal day?

(I will add these are people who have been coming for years not weeks!)

I am certain there was a study done in the last year - possibly University of Vienna? - that did prove dogs are capable of emotion.

In this case it was a study to see if dogs are able to feel jealousy, which it proved they were, but more importantly I think it was the very first study done to prove dogs can feel any emotion, which leaves the door wide open to all the others.

Just finished Alexandra Horowitz's "Inside of a Dog" which is also a very interesting book on the subject of how dogs perceive the world, including emotion.

I remember my first dog a Cairn terrier who definitely knew time. When I was a teenager and away from home I used to ring my Mum up at 7pm each night for a quick chat and to say hello to Rusty. The phone was in the hall and promptly at 7pm he would get up and go and sit next to the phone waiting. EXCEPT for Wednesdays when I worked late and would ring up at 8pm. He never went into the hall till the right time on a Wednesday! How did he know? My parents were both retired then so their routine was pretty much the same whatever day of the week it was.

He also shew emotions, one example being when I went to visit an elderly lady and her daughter who had Down's Syndrome. Rusty sat on the mat looking at the daughter and kept making a crying noise which he had never done before or after this occasion. I was embarrassed about this but her Mum said that dogs picked up there was something different about her daughter and her Son's dog did the same but her doctor said this was rubbish.