Response to Jenna

Jenna posted the questions: Do you think our pets can or do love us in the same way we love them? Can animals love at all?

Many people have said in their blogs and in class that we have to be careful of the extent to which we anthropomorphize animals. The case of giving animals human emotions is a slippery slope. It is easy to assume by watching an animal's body language or behavior that we know what is going on inside their mind. We want to know because we care about them, especially our pets. The fact is that we just don't know what is really going through an animal's mind at any given moment.

In the case of pets I think that it is a bit easier to guess how they feel because we're dealing with domesticated animals that have lived by our sides for thousands of years in some cases. We have an idea of when our dogs are happy to be with us. Many dogs protect their owners from other people so we assume that those animals care for us. Perhaps they do. However, we also have to remember that dogs are pack animals and they most likely see you as another dog. If dogs don't have the ability to recognize themselves in the mirror then I highly doubt that they have the ability to differentiate between species. The fact is that when a dog protects their owner their mentality is that they are protecting the leader of the pack. This act may not be out of love but out of a biological sense of duty to a being of higher standing than they are. Again, I ascribe a human emotion such as duty to a non-human and therefore might be making a less than sound claim but I think it is a safe one to make in consideration of pack mentality and the dog being a highly domesticated and intelligent animal.

I find it unlikely that dogs have not evolved to take on some human characteristics in the thousands of years that they have spent with us, but I do not think that they love us in the same way that we love them. Love is an extremely subjective and conditional term even within the human race therefore making it far too complex to ascribe to a non-human, no matter how domesticated they may be. I think that pets appreciate their families and have a great amount of respect and loyalty to them. Perhaps in their own way our pets love us, but I do not think it is on the same level as our love for them.

My question here is how do you think domesticated cats differ from dogs on the subject of pet/human relationships based on behavioral cues?