Do dogs have emotions and feelings?

eddie101 said:
Dogs wag tails when happy - happiness
Dogs put tail in between their legs when scared - Fear

So yes, yes they do :)

/thread
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Doubters would say that they don't actually feel anything, the outward signs are just a means to an end. They would have course be wrong.
 
It has been recently proven that dogs are one of the only animals to be able to read the emotions of a human based on visual perception alone... so if they can read, maybe they do process emotions (but no one has proved this yet).
 
I think people try and make out animals don't have emotions/feelings/awareness of themselves etc. so they can justify their feeling of human superiority. A lot of people IMO seem to want to elevate themselves above "animals" and to do that try and put down other animals.

And yes dogs have emotions, and so do cats, and rats, guiniepigs and rabbits. I would maybe draw the line at fish but even then only because I haven't taken much notice...
 
Emotions arent some superior higher function. Our emotions come from a deep lower part of the brain(I cant remember exactly which). Dogs I believe have this same part.

It is likely that emotions were one of the first brain functions to evolve(after all the basic functional stuff). If a dog didnt have fear it would do stupid things all the time, and end up dead(or perhaps instead of feeling fear it thinks to itself "I better not do that, it might end up bad").

If you look at and watch any animals in detail, and dont judge it on normal human expressive terms, then you can see them play out all manner of emotions.
 
Amp34 said:
I think people try and make out animals don't have emotions/feelings/awareness of themselves etc. so they can justify their feeling of human superiority. A lot of people IMO seem to want to elevate themselves above "animals" and to do that try and put down other animals.
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We are above animals. Our intellect puts us well above even the most emotive puppy dog. Our ability to make complex machines, our ability to talk, to write, to create art. All of these puts us a step above ordinary animals.
 
RDM said:
We are above animals. Our intellect puts us well above even the most emotive puppy dog. Our ability to make complex machines, our ability to talk, to write, to create art. All of these puts us a step above ordinary animals.
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They are just as evolved as we are! And to say that dogs can't communicate with one another would be stupid to say the least.
 
Nice vid :)
I imagine the authorities quickly dispensed with the stray dogs...
Just to put a dampener on an otherwise slightly uplifting video :p

Yeah, I think dogs have feelings, I feel that my two show clear emotion.
 
NightSt@lk3r said:
Ill let my dog build my next PC, lets see how that gets on.
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And I'll ask you to chase down a rabbit with no mechanical aids. Good luck. :)

It's a bit pointless comparing tasks that require a physical attribute that the other species doesn't have surely. I don't think that dogs are as evolved as humans but whether that is a good or a bad thing is a bit more debatable, some animals are almost perfectly adapted to their environments hence being unchanged for millenia, see sharks as an example.
 
RDM said:
Dogs are just as evolved as we are? We created the modern dog. Their ability to communicate is quite some considerable distance behind ours too.



Yup, but we are superior animals hence we are top dog as it were.
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You clearly don't understand evolution. A slug is just as evolved as us. And to say the modern dog couldn't live without us is true, but I am confident in saying if you took away all of our modern ways the majority of us would be wiped out.
 
orderoftheflame said:
Yes.

Anyone that says otherwise has never owned a dog.
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+1

Not only do they clearly show happyness, fear, sadness, etc

they also clearly have the ability to selectively trust people of their choosing, aside of the teratorial thing,
A good example is my dog will only take medication from me (when he's ill - i dont dose my dog for fun!) if anyone else in my family trys it, he just spits them out!
The same thing happened when he was bitten by an evil little jack Russell thing, i was the only one he'd allow to clean his wounds.
 
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