Do dogs have the same emotions as humans?  Most people believe they can read emotions in their dog very easily.  Your dog dances around and wags its tail when you come home, and you know your dog is happy to see you, and you think, "My dog loves me."  Or you're out on a walk, and your dog sees another canine approaching. Your dog freezes in place, his hackles rise and he emits a low growl.  You think, "My dog hates that dog." 

   Is your dog experiencing these emotions, or are you anthropomorphizing?  Dr. Stanley Coren, Professor Emeritus in the Dept. of Psychology at the Univ. of British Columbia, has noted that the existence of emotions in dogs is a point of scientific controversy.

   Coren notes that up until the last couple of centuries, dogs were viewed as machines that were unable to think or feel, but could be programmed to do certain things.  Early church scholars believed that only humans had souls, consciousness and feelings.  Animals, including dogs, did not have the "divine spark," and therefore did not have the ability to experience true feelings.

   More recent scientific discoveries show that dogs have the same brain structures that produce emotions in humans.  Dogs have the same hormones and chemical changes as humans do during emotional states, including the hormone oxytocin, which is associated with feelings of love and affection for others.

   Coren says that recent research done on infants and children show that they have a limited range of emotions.  It is over time that these emotions begin to differentiate and develop, so that by adulthood, their range of emotions is quite broad.

   He notes that researchers believe the mind of a dog is roughly equivalent to that of a human child who is 2 to 2 1/2 years old.  This reflects mental abilities as well as emotions.  According to Coren, our dogs clearly have emotions, but many fewer kinds than found in adult humans.

   At birth, a human infant has an emotional state of excitement, and within weeks this develops into contentment or distress.  Over many months, the more complex emotions of fear, anger, joy, shyness or suspicion, affection and love appear.  Coren says that dogs develop a similar sequence of emotional development, but much more quickly than humans.  Dogs will have all the emotional range that they will ever achieve, according to Coren, by the time they are six months old.  He states that dogs will never feel shame, pride or guilt (which are emotions that children may develop between 3 and 5 years of age).

   Guilty looks that your dog may display after leaving an unwelcome deposit on your living room floor is, according to Coren, simply a feeling of fear -- of punishment.  Or, as others suggest, your dog may be reading your displeasure in your body language and energy level.

   If you have more than one dog, you may wonder if your dogs feel jealousy.  Friederike Range, a researcher at the University of Vienna, discovered that dogs do have a sense of "fair play."  Her team worked with a group of dogs that would "shake," or give their paw.  When some of the dogs received a food reward for giving their paw, the dogs not getting the treat would stop participating.  Is this jealousy, or distress at being left out, and feeling isolated or abandoned?

   Grief may be another emotion that dogs share with humans.  Greyfriars Bobby is the well known story of the Skye Terrier in 19th century Edinburgh that spent 14 years guarding the grave of his owner, John Gray, although many now believe the story is fantasy.  Dogs don't grieve in the same way humans do, but they do experience sadness when a pet companion dies.  In 1996, the ASPCA conducted a Companion Animal Mourning Project that found that 66% of dogs exhibited four or more behavioral changes after losing a pet friend.  The study also found that most dogs returned to normal after two weeks, but some took as long as six months. 



   Many of us treat our dogs as "family" and perhaps expect too much from them, to the point that the animal's health and well-being is negatively affected.  Refusing to spay or neuter your pet is one of the most common destructive effects of anthropomorphizing dogs and cats.  But treating them with love and respect is noble and the rewards are limitless.  Yes, your pet deserves a Valentine -- just don't give it with chocolate (it's poisonous to dogs).