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Giovanni Castro
Dr. Lynda Haas
Writing 39C
August 2, 2015
The Emotional Dog
Dogs represent the specific domesticated group of animals, namely pets. The attribution
to their group implies that, often times, they are confused to be submissive creatures living
unconsciously. Some take a leap further and assume they are merely possessions which would
then suggest that dogs are emotionless; they are some sort of friendly robot that eats and sleeps
whenever its owner allows to. This is not the case. Animal awareness is a growing study, which
originated from Darwins understanding of evolution in the 19th century from his work The
Origin of Species, 1859 (Bekoff 2), but canine appreciation was only given a large focus dating
back to approximately the 1950s when behavioral psychologists John Paul Scott and John Fuller
made groundbreaking research on dog behavior (Coppinger 34). Perhaps people merely lack
sufficient information that dogs present evidence that they are in fact beings that live beyond the
scope of instinct, and offer intriguing cognitive patterns that can be associated with humanbehavior. By mentioning this, I will address the idea that dogs, in response for being conscious
animals like humans, provide a strong correlation with their emotional side hence proving they
are socially active and to some extent intellects of their species.

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Figure 1
To begin this review, I would like to point out the obvious issue with studying canine
cognition: dogs speak words. As Marian Stamp Dawkins would say: Actions speak louder than
words (Dawkins 150); this proverb is what scientists and behavioral psychologists would solely
base their studies when attempting to acknowledge patterns in body-language like twisting their
necks indicating they are confused, barking and other physical gestures such as wagging their
tail. To further back this claim, Dr. Brian Hare, professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke
University, and Vanessa Woods, journalist, scientist and writer, mention how dogs frequently
use visual signals to communicate (Hare 135). I would then progress to establish a positive and
essentially plausible link between dogs basic knowledge, from a humans perspective, and their
emotion. As I have mentioned previously, the fundamental understanding of animals, where
these studies were given birth are all derived from Darwins first observations and theories, yet
the central and controlling thesis also shows that 100 years later the species Canis Familiaris,
latin for dogs, started to slowly develop studies as of 1950s.

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Firstly, I would like to introduce a small perspective of humans understanding of the

dog. As illustrated in Figure 1, it becomes clear that dogs have different levels or stages of
contemplation. All animals, including humans have the first item within the animals nature; the
body naturally works in synchrony, meaning: if an animal feels an urge to eat it means that
unconsciously, their body sends a message to the brain, which would then allow the animal to
search for food. The second item has more conscious thinking required by the animal: the
hunting aspect is more complex than eating because, in essence, the dog must initiate a search
and use its senses to its favor. Interestingly, the dog has such a powerful smell for hunting that
research shows they are superior to humans in detection of odorants (Greenberg 388).
Nonetheless, the dog can undergo even further complex thinking, which then develops more into
emotions. As I mentioned above, disgust is a feeling that pertains to taste; in order for an animal
to acknowledge taste, it must be a conscious reaction of not desiring a particular thing, as in
food, for example.
The informative pictorial image above was based on the article written by Stanley Coren,
who noted that there are certain emotions felt by humans that can be attributed to dogs. As he
mentions in his article, to understand what dogs feel look at research done on emotions of
humans (Coren). This point is strongly aligned with my central thesis because since dogs do
have a direct manner of speech as humans do with verbal communication, it is essentially human
emotions that dogs portray. To some extent this might be an unfair examination, however given
the fact that humans consider dogs their best-friends, it makes sense to associate dogs with
these characteristics, since they socially accept and love human-beings. It would not be the case
of an alpha predator such as a lion, or a reptile, like a snake, to collaborate with humans, even
though they might have similar emotions. In the specific case of the dog, Conrey asserts that

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researchers have now come to believe that the mind of a dog is roughly equivalent to that of a
human (Coren).
Now it is established that animals, specifically dogs, have somewhat of a conscious. But
to take this notion and to amplify it to a global scale, scientists have recently come to agree to a
formal thesis, as of 2012, namely The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness1. This is an
important fact that can now be ignored as an assumption when conducting the studies of
cognition of animals; as Marc Bekoff mentioned in his recently posted article: scientists
presented evidence that led to this self-obvious conclusion (Bekoff). It is important to note that I
very explicitly provided with lengthy evidence of animal conscious as an argument to refute the
confusion an average person might have of their dog, or of other dogs, that they are soulless and
forever enslaved to humans.
To oppose this fairly common view of dogs being dependent of humans, I would like to
direct to Alexandra Horowitz book, when she mentions dogs love is entwined with loyalty
(Horowitz 21). This idea is a very authoritative notion that goes to show that humans so selfishly
ignore a dogs loyalty and then associate it with dependence, or as Dr. James Serpell, professor of
humane ethics and animal welfare at the University of Pennsylvania, in his studies comments
that families acquire a dog for the sole reason of pet deficit2 (Serpell 163). It is an unfair
balance in this dog-human relationship, since a dog has such strong devotion to love that it
basically fascinates itself on its owner. This not only proves my first part of the thesis, that dogs

1 The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness: Convergent evidence that indicates that nonhuman animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of
conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors.
2 Simply needing a pet

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have a conscious, but also they have feelings of emotion. Love is an immeasurable and
indescribable emotion that humans share amongst themselves on a daily basis, but it one of many
emotions that the complex human brain processes. Quickly glancing back to Figure 1, the
illustration proves that there are only a handful of emotions that a dog can have, and clearly, one
of them is love. After this brief referral, bear it in mind and turn towards Monique Udell as she
puts that dogs appear to be sensitive to the attentional state of humans (Udell Theory of Mind).
This is a parallel theory to that of dogs passion or love for the human-being, which finally lays
out my key statement that dogs are altruistic beings, making them socially acceptable and
intellects for showing human emotions.
To conclude this review, I would like to affirm that it has become less of an assumption
that dogs do in fact have a conscious, given their intelligent cognitive patterning, which would
then correspond to them having emotions. I also greatly emphasize the fact that it is a
presumption that dogs have similar behavioral aspects to humans since, logically, to associate an
animal with a conscious using human emotions as a testing factor, if the test proved to have a
positive match, then there must exist a relationship between the two beings. However, more than
just establishing a connection between humans and animals, the fact the there is a minimal
recognition of a dogs existence is a breakthrough in the social acceptance of their species.
Recent studies have shown that it is vital to acknowledge that the father of animal evolution,
Charles Darwin, back in the 1800s, already established that dogs have emotions such as love,
fear, shame and rage, as well as dreams, and the ability to imitate and reason (Udell), proving
that dogs are, to some extent, intellects to their respective cognitive potential.

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So dogs do in fact behave respectfully in human society, not as a fully active human but
as contributors, serving more as a supporter to the human owner who acquired the pet. By
mentioning this, they then do deserve mutual respect being the benevolent creators they are and
so, consequently, they deserve to have rights just as much as a human. This is a notion that not
only bothers me personally, but also troubles greater population worldwide, which corresponds
to the growing study of animal awareness. I shall now pose a challenge to a reflection: if dogs
are scientifically proven to have a conscious, follow to some extent social requirements to be
accepted by humans and do have emotions, what gives a human-being the right to abuse of this
animal?

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Works Cited
Bekoff, Marc. The Cognitive Animal Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal
Cognition. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2002. Print.
Coppinger, Raymond, and Lorna Coppinger. Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine
Origin, Behavior, and Evolution. New York: Scribner, 2001. Print.
Dawkins, Marian Stamp. Why Animals Matter: Animal Consciousness, Animal Welfare, and
Human Well-being. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.
Hare, Brian, and Vanessa Woods. The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter than You Think.
Penguin, 2013. Print.
Horowitz, Alexandra. Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know. New York: Scribner,
2009. Print.

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Coren, Stanley. "Which Emotions Do Dogs Actually Experience?" Psychology Today. 13 Mar.
2013. Web. 2 Aug. 2015. <https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201303/whichemotions-do-dogs-actually-experience>.
Bekoff, Marc. "Scientists Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings." Psychology
Today. 10 Aug. 2012. Web. 2 Aug. 2015. <https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animalemotions/201208/scientists-conclude-nonhuman-animals-are-conscious-beings>.
Udell, Monique, and C.D.L Wynne. "A Review of Domestic Dogs' (Canis Familiaris) HumanLike Behaviors: Or Why Behavior Analysts Should Stop Worrying and Love Their Dogs."
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. Society for the Experimental Analysis of
Behavior, Inc., 1 Mar. 2008. Web. 2 Aug. 2015.
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2251326/>.
Greenberg, Gary. "Dogs in Service to Humans." Comparative Psychology: A Handbook. New
York: Garland Pub., 1998. Print.
Serpell, James. "Dogs as Human Companions: A Review of the Relationship." The Domestic
Dog: Its Evolution, Behaviour, and Interactions with People. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.
Print.