My dog Raja was invited to the home of a friend, a dog with whom we walk almost every day. Raja was very excited. At last, he would have a chance to play all evening. When we arrived, Raja’s friend was excited too. But she quickly cooled her excitement when Raja started playing with her toys and lying down on her bed mat. She went off to lie down at her people’s feet, and snarled when Raja came close. Raja was dejected. His tail drooped, his head hung down, and he kept coming up to us and nudging our hands, seeking reassurance. When it was time to go home, Raja’s friend did not get up from where she was lying, and did not even wag her tail in farewell. The next day, Raja was clearly depressed. He spent most of the day sleeping, and could not even be roused for a game of fetch, one of his favorite games. The following day, I took Raja out for his daily walk where he usually meets his friend, only to find that his friend did not want to come up to him, much less give him the enthusiastic greeting that he always received before. Raja seemed devastated. During the entire walk, he had his head hung low, and showed none of the symptoms of being a bouncy dog who loves his walks. Fortunately, the following day, when we met up with his friend, she greeted him with the usual affection, and Raja was transformed back into the happy, bouncy dog that he was before our visit to his friend’s house.
What was happening here? Could Raja have been experiencing a variety of emotions, similar to what we might feel when we have been rejected by a friend? Could his friend have been experiencing emotions of anger that Raja was playing with her toys, and experiencing jealousy because Raja was getting praise from her people? While we have to be careful of indulging in anthropomorphism, or ascribing human traits to animals, I think that the answer is clearly “Yes!” Raja was feeling badly because he expected to have a good time, and instead was rejected. While some scientists would scoff at this and say that dogs are not capable of experiencing emotions, the bulk of the evidence seems to be showing that dogs, as well as other animals, can experience at least the basic emotions of fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, and surprise.
Now there are several books that explore the question of emotions in dogs. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s book, Dogs Never Lie About Love, explores the emotions of dogs. Among his other books, The Pig Who Sang To The Moon explores the emotional lives of farm animals, and When Elephants Weep explores the general question of emotions in animals. Marc Bekoff’s book, The Emotional Lives Of Animals, provides abundant evidence that a variety of different animals have extensive emotional lives. And Patricia McConnell’s book, For The Love Of A Dog: Understanding Emotion In You And Your Best Friend, presents a variety of evidence of emotions in dogs, as well as ways that people can recognize the signals that dogs give when they are experiencing different emotions.
We are finally emerging from the days when dogs, and animals in general, were looked upon as inferior creatures that operated on programs of instinct, kind of like mechanical robots with no feelings and thoughts. We are beginning to recognize that dogs are sentient beings who have rich emotional lives, just as we are sentient beings who have rich emotional lives of our own.
---Con Slobodchikoff
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