![]() Dogs even have the hormone oxytocin, which, in humans, is involved with feeling love and affection for others. Dogs have the same hormones and undergo the same chemical changes that humans do during emotional states. We have now come to understand that dogs possess all of the same brain structures that produce emotions in humans. Science has clearly progressed a long, long way beyond the thinking of Descartes and Malebranche. Is this a yelp of pain indicating that the toaster is afraid? Their argument would be that dogs simply act and do not feel. These researchers might respond that if you kicked a toaster it would make a sound. You might point out that if you kicked a dog it would yelp in pain and fear. ![]() It is programmed to snap at things that threaten it, or if the threat is too great, it is programmed to run away. Those classical scientists and their successors would say that the dog is simply acting, not feeling. Alternatively, it might become afraid, and this is proven by the fact that it whimpers and runs away. You might argue against this by noting that if you challenge a dog it clearly becomes angry, and this is proven by the fact that it snarls or snaps. Nicholas de Malebranche, who extended Descartes’ ideas, summed up the idea when he claimed that animals “eat without pleasure, cry without pain, act without knowing it: they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing.” This machine doesn’t think, but it can be programmed to do certain things. He would thus describe my Beagle, Darby, as simply being a dog-shaped chassis, filled with the biological equivalent of gears and pulleys. In a highly influential set of analyses, Descartes suggested that animals like dogs were simply some kind of machine. The most prominent person to adopt this line was the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes. To do so might have caused the church authorities to feel that the scientists were suggesting that an animal such as a dog might have a soul and consciousness, and flying in the face of church doctrine could lead to a lot of problems. Since much of the science of the time was sponsored by church-related schools and universities, it is not surprising to find that the researchers would not assert the existence of higher levels of mental functioning such as emotions in animals. ![]() Church scholars insisted that people have souls, and the evidence they gave for this was the fact that humans have consciousness and feelings animals might have the same mechanical systems, they argued, but they did not have a divine spark and, therefore, did not have the ability to experience “true” feelings. In the face of such discoveries, religions stepped in to suggest that there must be more to human beings than simply mechanical and chemical events. In addition, we were learning that living things were also governed by systems that followed mechanical rules and chemical processes. Mankind was now beginning to understand enough about the principles of physics and mechanics that we could build complex machines. However, with the rise of science things began to change. In the dim, distant past it was presumed that dogs had very rich mental lives, with feelings much like those of humans and even the ability to understand human language almost as well as people. The History of Dog Emotions: Soul or Machine? ![]() For this reason it is difficult for many people to understand that the existence of emotions in dogs was-and in some places still is-a point of scientific controversy. ![]() Seeing him makes Rex angry.” In such situations the emotional state of our dogs seems quite obvious. We interpret this as “Rex does not like that dog. For example, you come home and your dog dances around wagging her tail, and you think to yourself, “Lady is happy to see me,” or “Lady really loves me.” Or perhaps you’re out on a walk and, at the approach of another canine, your dog freezes in place, his hackles raised, and gives a low throaty growl. Do dogs have feelings? Most people can read emotions in their dog quite easily. ![]()
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