Emotional support dog? Most people can easily recognize their dog’s feelings.

For instance, when you get home and your dog joyfully jumps around, wagging her tail, you might think to yourself, “Lady is thrilled to see me” or “Lady truly loves me.”

Alternatively, you might be taking a walk when you encounter another dog, causing your dog to freeze, raise his hackles, and let out a low, rumbling growl.

We understand this as meaning, “Rex dislikes that dog, and seeing him causes Rex to feel angry.” In such instances, the emotional condition of our pets becomes pretty evident.

Consequently, it can be challenging for many individuals to acknowledge that the existence of emotions in dogs has historically been—and in some contexts remains—a subject of scientific debate.

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The History of Canine Emotions: emotional support dog

Are they souls or machines?? emotional support dog ?

In ancient times, it was believed that dogs possessed complex mental lives, experiencing emotions similar to humans and even having the ability to understand human language nearly as well as people do.

This is the second sentence:

Nevertheless, the advent of science began to bring about changes. Humanity was beginning to understand the principles of physics and mechanics well enough to engineer complex machinery.

In addition, we were discovering that biological things were also guided by systems that followed mechanical principles and chemical processes.

In light of these discoveries, religious beliefs emerged to assert that human beings are more than just mechanical and chemical processes.

Church scholars maintained that humans possess souls, citing consciousness and emotions as evidence for their claim.

They argued that although animals may share similar mechanical structures, they lack a divine spark and, consequently, cannot experience “true” emotions.

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Previous Research on Dog Feelings – emotional support dog

Given that most of the science of the period was financed by church-related institutions and colleges, it is not surprising that the researchers would not claim the presence of higher degrees of mental functioning in animals, such as emotions.

To do so may have given the church officials the impression that the scientists were implying that an animal, such as a dog, had a soul and conscience, and going against church teaching may have generated a slew of issues.

René Descartes, a French philosopher and physicist, was the most renowned advocate of this viewpoint. Descartes proposed in a widely important series of studies that animals, such as dogs, were merely machines.

He would describe my Beagle, Darby, as merely a dog-shaped framework filled with the biological equivalent of gears and pulleys.

This machine doesn’t possess the ability to think, yet it can be programmed to perform specific tasks. Nicholas de Malebranche, building upon Descartes’ theories, encapsulated the idea by stating that animals “eat without pleasure, cry without pain, act without awareness; they desire nothing, fear nothing, and know nothing.”

You may argue against this by pointing out that when you confront a dog, it definitely gets upset, as seen by it snarling or snapping.

Alternatively, it may grow terrified, as seen by its whimpering and running away. Those traditional scientists and their descendants would argue that the dog is just performing, not feeling. It is wired to snap at objects that threaten it, or if the danger is too big, it will flee away.

You could point out that if you were to kick a dog, it would yell in pain and fear. These researchers may answer that kicking a toaster would produce a sound.

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Is this a painful shriek signaling that the toaster is afraid? – emotional support dog

They would argue that dogs just perform and do not feel.

Here’s a rephrased version of the second sentence: “What We Currently Understand About Canine Emotions today” Scientific understanding has significantly progressed from the concepts proposed by Descartes and Malebranche.

We now know that dogs share all of the brain areas that cause emotions in humans. Dogs experience the same hormones and undergo similar chemical changes as humans do during emotional states.

Dogs also produce the hormone oxytocin, which in humans is linked to feelings of love and affection towards others. Considering that dogs share similar neurological and chemical structures with humans, it appears likely that they experience emotions comparable to our own.

It’s crucial to remember that dogs and humans do not necessarily share the same emotional spectrum.

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Current Studies on Dog Emotions

To understand how dogs feel, we must refer to studies on human emotions.

It is true that not everyone experiences all possible emotions, and you may not have experienced all of the emotions that you do now. There is much evidence demonstrating that newborns and very young children experience a relatively restricted spectrum of emotions.

The infant’s emotions gradually distinguish and evolve, and by maturity, their variety of emotional experiences is fairly vast.

Researchers now think that a dog’s cognitive abilities are comparable to those of a human child between the ages of two and two and a half years.

Why is this information crucial for gaining insight into our dogs’ emotional experiences?

Researchers currently estimate that a dog’s cognitive abilities are comparable to those of a human between the ages of two and two and a half years.

This conclusion is relevant to the majority of cognitive abilities as well as emotional aspects. Thus, we may turn to human study to understand what we might anticipate from our pets.

Our dogs certainly have feelings, much like a two-year-old toddler, but they have far fewer types of emotions than adults.

This suggests his level of excitement, which can vary from being very calm to reaching a frenzied state. In the initial weeks of life, the state of excitement begins to develop either a positive or negative tone, allowing us to recognize general emotions such as contentment and distress.

In the upcoming months, the infant starts to exhibit signs of disgust, fear, and anger. Joy typically does not manifest in infants until they are close to six months old, and this period is often accompanied by the onset of shyness or suspicion.

Genuine affection, the kind that truly warrants the label “love,” typically doesn’t fully emerge until a child is around nine or ten months old. The complicated social emotions—those that include parts that must be learned—don’t arrive until much later.

Shame and pride take roughly three years to arrive, while guilt comes about six months after that. A youngster is almost four years of age before she experiences disdain.

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A Visual Guide to the Emotions Dogs Experience: Understanding the Actual Feelings of Dogs

This developmental process is essential for grasping the emotions that dogs experience.

Dogs progress through their developmental stages much faster than humans, achieving their full emotional range by the time they reach four to six months old (although this can vary depending on their breed’s maturity rate).

The key takeaway is that the emotional range available to dogs is comparable to that of a human toddler aged two to two-and-a-half years.

This implies that a dog will feel all of the fundamental emotions: joy, fear, rage, contempt, and, yes, love, but not more complicated emotions such as guilt, pride, or shame. Many people believe they have observed evidence that their dog can experience feelings of guilt.

In a common situation, you arrive home to find your dog acting uneasy and moving around cautiously, which leads you to the unfortunate discovery of an unpleasant brown mess on your kitchen floor.

It is logical to believe that the dog’s behavior indicates that he is feeling remorseful about his infraction. This is not a sense of guilt, as it might seem; instead, it reflects a deeper emotion of dread.

Your dog has figured out that if you come home and his mess is out in the open, he will face negative repercussions.

What you observe is his fear of consequences.

He will never experience guilt because he is unable to feel it.

Learn about the indicators of separation anxiety in dogs, as well as other helpful training suggestions. Here’s a rephrased version of the second sentence: “What implications does this have for those of us who coexist with and engage with dogs?”? The positive aspect is that you can indeed put your dog in that silly outfit for a party.

He will not feel ashamed, no matter how foolish he seems. He won’t take pride in securing first place at a dog show or an obedience competition.

But your dog may undeniably love you and be pleased in your presence, and that’s really the point, isn’t it? As the Beatles famously said, “All you need is love,” and fortunately, our pets provide us with an abundance of it.