Does Your Pet Know That You are Looking After it?

Your dog and meow, really know how good you for them? When they are sick, you take care of them. Can they understand what happened? When they wagged his tail, show you its belly and  lick your hand with a warm tongue, do you think that they are really grateful to express its love for you? Before, do not hesitate to reply and I’m sure, you may also need to understand one thing – animals really have feelings? If they have, the mood is how to produce, what are the similarities and differences with human?

I don’t have a dog, but a few of my friends have a dog, we often play together. Among them, I most like a dog’s name is Roddy, it is the offspring of a golden retriever and a bernese mountain dog. Roddy is energetic, very naughty, lively and active. (“Roddy” means” noisy “, the name is very suitable for it – not only like to shout loudly, roddy also like jump, when there are other dogs or when the stranger came near, it would be barking. It is only a dog after all.

Sometimes, Roddy almost couldn’t control itself, this kind of behavior almost let it perish. The host of Roddy is my friend, Angela. On one occasion, when they go out for a walk, a teenage boy approached it and wanted to touch it. Roddy don’t know the boy, started yelling and pouncing on the boy. The boy has no obvious damage, but surprisingly, a few hours later, the boy’s mother (didn’t) at the scene alarm grabbed roddy, think of it as a “potentially dangerous dog”. In subsequent years, poor in roddy when go out for a walk to wear flowing sleeve. If roddy pouncing on one person again,  it will be marked with murderous, and it may even be killed.

The boy is afraid of Roddy, so feel Roddy is angry and dangerous. When you meet a barking dog, it really angry? Or this is just an act of defend territories, or beat it screaming just trying to express friendly to you? In short, dogs can experience the emotions?

According to common sense, our answer is usually “yes”. When Roddy roar, it can feel emotions.Many bestseller are discussed this problem, including Marc Bekoff’s The Emotional Lives of Animals, Virginia Morell’s Animal Wise and Gregory Burn’s How Dogs Love Us. Dozens of news stories are introduced animal emotions related scientific discovery: the dog will envy, mice can experience remorse, crayfish can be anxiety, and even fly will be afraid of the fly swatter. Of course, if you live with a pet, you will surely find them looks very emotional behavior: fear around, happy jumping, growls when sadness, purr when caressing. Obviously, the method of animal experience emotions seem to be same with human beings. [1] In Beyond Words: What Animals Think Feel, the author Karl schaffner hit the nail on the head to point out: “So, other animals have human emotions? Yes, there are. Then the human have animal emotions? Yes, basically is the same.”

But some scientists don’t agree with this point of view, they think animal emotions is just an illusion: Roddy’s brain circuits activate the behavior not for emotions, but in order to survive. In these scientists point of view, Roddy approaches in order to defend its territory, it retreats in order to avoid the threat. In these cases, according to this view, Roddy is likely to experience the joy and pain, excited or other all sorts of feelings, but it doesn’t have a psychological mechanism to experience a lot more. This account cannot be satisfactory because it denied our experience.Millions of pet owners believe that their dogs roar when angry, in sad when depressed, will hide their heads in shame. It is hard to imagine that these perceptions are only the illusion of the animal which based on some general emotional reactions of illusion.

(To Be Continued)

 

 


Post time: Jan-11-2022