Do you think they know?

R

Ranyhyn

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That we love them? I shower kisses on my two and stroke them a lot but I do wonder if they really equate this with affection (seen as they don't kiss eachother lol)
Thoughts?
 
Answer me you dogoholics!!!!!!!
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Yes i definately think they know. If you stroke Bes and then stop she'll prod you with her foot till you start again so I'm sure she likes it! If you kiss her, she'll try and lick your face!

My two do occasionally lick each others faces and ears.
 
A dogs love comes from a full stomach and security!! Thus you can kiss it all you like, but it won't make a jot of diffence about how it feel about you. My JRT hates being kissed, he growls and curls his lips when I kiss him (being a bad mummy this makes me do it more)!! Before anyone jumps on me to say it is dangerous he'll bite you, he won't, he knows biting is unacceptable.
 
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If you kiss her, she'll try and lick your face!

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Nah she just wants you to vomit up some food for her to eat!!!
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Lol she has always been a greedy one!!!
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If you kiss her, she'll try and lick your face!

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Nah she just wants you to vomit up some food for her to eat!!!
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Haha! Genius!! Whenever I cough my two look at me as if to say "go on mum vomit us some dinner!!" lol


I don't know if you are entirely right PE - because dogs who have been neglected etc still seem to love their owner - hence the whole kicking a puppy saying? Do you think?
 
I think they don't really know "affection" as an emotion as we humans but they do know when they are loved by how we care for them by training, feeding, walking, giving the correct attention etc.
My Collie x wouldn't relax at all when we first had her as a rescue but she now will come and lie by me for a "cuddle" and her whole body is totally relaxed. Mind you it took me nearly 2 years to gain her trust. God knows what she had been through before.
 
Since a lot of dogs can learn to play with cats (and the other way around of course), that have a somewhat different body-language f. ex. a cat who "wags" its tail is extremely annoyed/about to explode but a dog who wags its tail is happy/friendly.

Some dogs do lick each other around the mouth in situations where it clearly isn't about trying to make them bring up food, strangely enough if it's between a dog and bitch some owners go all "Oh look, they're kissing each other/they're in love" but if it's between dogs of same gender "nobody" seems to call it kissing... I do believe it's a way to show affection, but I try to not put human value's into it.

My dogs are often somewhat sensitive to my moods otherwise so why should they not sense that I feel loving when I'm affectionate towards them? I believe they're capable of connecting what I do with my feelings and thereby have learned humans/my body-language for showing affection.



So since they can learn that "same" signal means different things and often senses our mood, I'm sure that a lot of dogs can learn that f. ex. hugs are a human way to show affection.

Off subject, but I can't help wanting to take the opportunity to point out that I don't believe that dogs feel ashamed over things they've done. They senses our feelings/have learned what might upset us and uses their dog-language signals to try and defuse the situation. But it is a "defusing" signal and nothing else/more than that.


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My dog feels embarassed! He fell of the chair yesterday - and the other one - a girl - took it as a good opportunity to hump him!!
He went to sleep in a strop!
 
Feeling sort of embarrassed as in failing to do something they normally can/knows how to do, such as failing to remember where a chair ends, I can maybe agree about. Maybe, but not preferably, also to describe the feeling when disliking/not being comfortable with, what another dog does as sort of being embarrassed.
But that's mostly because I interpret the word embarrassed as a milder version of shame, though I don't really think it's the most suitable way/word to describe it, at least not in the later situation.

However I'm not saying it to try and "convert" sensible owners, it's those that believes that if the dog uses a defusing body-language it's okay to punish it because it is "ashamed" and knows what/that it has done something wrong. I only brought it up because that is also something they can show when they've sensed our mood and where similar body-language means different things for different species, but where I don't believe you ever could learn a dog to really feel the feeling we connect with a certain body-language.

Most of us react negatively on smelly farts, but we don't react as some do for an indoor wee, therefore the dog doesn't feel the need/learns to use a defusing body-language after farting and thereby farts without "shame". Some dogs might not like the smell themselves but they don't seem "ashamed" and come crawling for our "forgiveness".


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NOt int he way we love them,but in their own way,yes.
They choose to be with some people over others,will go bonkers at seeing a "lost & found " pack member(which to us is simply someone who doesnt live in the same house
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To them it is more joy and contentment at being with a strong leader who makes them safe,but hte do form very stong bonds with the humans in their life and aversions to those that treat them badly.
Its love Jim,but not as we know it.
 
"They choose to be with some people over others,"

I so agree with this statement. When my OH runs our Lab at flyball I have to either be at the end of the run back or totally out of sight or else she will run to me and not him! Not that she doesn't have love and respect for him, but she looks on me I think as more of the "pack leader" or something I think!
We must be careful not to put Human emotions on our dogs.I hope this doesn't sound harsh or anything-it's just that we must always remember they are dogs and not human. I am besotted with both my dogs.
 
I think within reason, it doesn't matter if you do put human emotion into them. I mean so long as a dog is happy and well cared for, who cares if we don't really 'get them'?
 
You'll like this.......My farrier has a JRT too and if he tells her to 'give him a kiss' she will trot over to my JRT and lick his face (much to Ozzie's disgust).
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I didn't mean they don't 'love' get attached to us (in their own way), just that I don't think they see kisses as a sign of affection.
 
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