I remember being a kid when we had a Cairn Terrier. Whenever I was feeling blue, he'd come up to me and pawed me until I was smiling and gave him a big hug. It always worked.

One time, while I was travelling with my parents in the motor home, he totally panicked because I was hiding up above that driver's compartment and he thought I'd got left behind at the last rest stop and he couldn't see me. He only relaxed when I called out to him.

No, dogs feel real emotion and are not just automatons showing behaviours that get them fed. I'm convinced of that.

ETA: ambiguous grammar.

ashling

(25,771 posts)

3. emotion is not the same thing as shame

Reply to Ron Obvious (Reply #2)

Fri Feb 28, 2014, 12:34 AM

Feb 2014

.....

uriel1972

(4,261 posts)

4. Animals with the requisite capacity feel emotions...

Reply to Ron Obvious (Reply #2)

Fri Feb 28, 2014, 09:15 AM

Feb 2014

I do not dispute that and never would. The flaw is in thinking that they would given the markedly different evolutionary paths, feel the same emotions in the same situations as we would.

Having owned cats I know them to have their own idiosyncrasies and moods. However they aren't by nature highly social creatures like we are and they have different responses to triggers.

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