Interview with a woman researching dog minds - Page 1

I heard this on NPR today and was wondering if anybody heard it, or read the book. Here's a link to the interview transcripts. I have had some doubts myself about pack stuff, about being the Big Kahouna Alpha Bitch around my place. Do you guys think your dogs LOVE you, or submit to you?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120823716 

 very interesting I had a major argumenets with some fellow students in my class of Writing Lab so much so I was presented with a book to read just to have a different view of opinion. Actually I'm myself of the same opinion as the writer in the original post

here is the book which contradicts

http://www.amazon.com/When-Elephants-Weep-Emotional-Animals/dp/0385314280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259378769&sr=8-1


regards

Thanks for this.  I do think speculation about the inner state of animal minds is interesting, but not ultimately knowable.  It is surely true that the old fashioned debate (granting very little emotion and cognition on the one hand or anthropomorphizing liberally on the other) was way off base, but even intuitive evolutionary arguments are not really more than theoretical starting points.  This is not an area in which we can easily collect any decent data, for obvious reasons.  We may just have to be willing to live with a lot of uncertainty about our dogs' inner mental states for quite some time.

On another note: too bad NPR was so careless in its transcripting of the radio broadcast.  Some of the spelling is atrocious.

I think they do both.  My dogs show a somewhat submissive way when coming up to me, head low, ears back, but eager to see me when I come home.  Just like any younger dogs that are here show submissive, head low, ears back, licking the older dogs and submitting to them.  I always hear people say how animals don't have emotions or can't think......I understand they can't rationalize, "oh hey, it took my owner ten months to build that fence"  but being around dogs and working with as many as I have worked with I do believe they have emotions and think to a degree....just not the way we do.  I will always believe in a "pack theory" though, my guys do it every day.....Then again I have mostly Huskies, a more pack oriented breed.  I do think a lot of times what people say is "love" is more so a dog learning to manipulate you. Sure dogs want attention and love to get it, and love to give it......I also see those same dogs at times claiming their owners, coming up to them all loving, and another dog gets near and they growl as if they own the person.  I didn't read the link, my computers acting weird, but just a small part of what I think about it all.

A friend of mine says that dogs DO have the same emotions we do, which she bases on the fact that we have the same neural stimulators and the same psycotropic drugs work the same way for both us and dogs. She says she believes that the only real difference is that we have more intellect than dogs do, so we handle the emotions differently. 

Do people even love?  Look at the divorce rates. 

Love is a choice me thinks( unless it is the love of a parent to a child)
  So do dogs love?  I don't think so, but some do bond much stronger than others.  If you have another dog, some great treats and a truck, you could probably steal my dogs no problem and they would get along fine and dandy without me!

 I think the key word here is aware. Humans are aware of the fact that we are aware while dogs are not aware of awareness

cheers

Red Sable, I personally don't know the difference between bonding and loving! 

Hmm, true.  I guess there are different kinds of love.  All I know is, dogs get over people when put in a new family after a couple of weeks or less.  There are only a few dogs that I know of that really bonded, Grey Friers Bobby comes to mind.  Okay, that is the only dog I can think of

What about when you have a dog that people call a one man dog.  That dog will only do for the human that owns him?
What of that?  Is it such a strong bond?  Is it insecurity to be with another human?  Is it training or a love for that person only. (if dogs can have love, maybe just a really strong bond in their mind)   Because what about the dogs that have stood by their masters even after they were dead or the one dog I read a story about that went to the train every day for years waiting for his human. I can't remember if it was an Akita or a GSD?  I think it was in China or Japan so maybe Akita.