Exactly. Dogs have no philosophical concept of mortality, but they do have an instinctual one.
One of the things I find the most admirable about dogs is their almost insuppressible optimism, that perennial doggie smile. The don’t waste their lives fretting about the future – they have the enviable freedom to fully embrace the here and now, because really, that’s all there is. It reminds me of this quote from Wendell Berry:
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and I am free.
If you want to compare who loves you more, lock your dog and your wife in the trunk of your car for a few hours. When you open it up, guess who’s more happy to see you?
Humans and dogs basically evolved alongside one another. The bond between us runs deep.
This video, though very washed-out, I find pretty neat, especially the second experiment. Basically, a man reads a book in front of an unfamiliar dog, who is not trained in any special way. The man then puts the book under his chair. Shortly, another person sneaks in and steals the book. The dog, even though he has no particular reason to do so, starts acting to alert the man. Like, “hey mister, someone took that thing that was important to you.”
We definitely have an inherent trust, at the very least.
I don’t know if dogs feel what humans think of as love, but there have been thousands of cases of dogs behaving in a truly altruistic, even heroic fashion, and I don’t think they would sacrifice themselves unless there was something very close to love there. I don’t know if loyalty is enough to make one willing to die for another, but I know that love is.
I provide “end of life” care for my rescue group, meaning I take in extremely elderly, abused, neglected, sick and dying dogs, (or otherwise unadoptable dogs) and provide them with a loving, dignified place to end their days. For some of these poor things, I am the only love they have ever known. They seem very grateful, and I think that some, if they survive long enough, come to love and trust me. Others, who fell upon hard times when their elderly human guardians became unable to provide for them, seem to miss their former humans until the end of their days. I have taken this sort of dog to the hospice, to visit with their dying human, and seen the heartbreak when they realize their human is leaving them. I have taken dogs to the funerals of their humans, and I truly believe they grieve as much as any human would, and then resign themselves to living out their days with me. Sometimes, they follow their human loves almost immediately.
If these animals are not feeling love, they are certainly feeling something close enough for me.
This and bonding in general is why the majority of seeing eye dogs are Labrador’s. They live with one family for their first year or two, then work with a trainer for a few months, then get to go with their new handler. Successful guide loves all their humans, but isn’t a one-person dog.
Now for PTSD and seizure dogs the bond is the most important part and the training is much easier, so they can use a dog the human already owns etc.
(our guide dog loves the family, but will work with anyone who has food. The rescue dog on the other hand bonded to me and only me.)
Not a lot of room for anything else. Bitches are smarter.
Effing A! One of mine (Fiona) would distract the bear while the other (Thisbe) bit his balls off.
This cannot be stressed enough. We wouldn’t have succeeded as we did without dogs.
As for love, we recently adopted SIL’s Aussiedoodle. She will be back in town for Xmas at mom’s home. I said I would ask the home if it would be okay to bring him, so he could see his people-mom. Wife said, “No! You can do that if he’s going back to Tacoma with her, but if he’s staying it will break his heart. You remember how Dylan was when Trilby died. He nearly died until we got the Little Girls.”
Now, as he’s concluding that he’s shit compared with them, and is learning his place in the pack, he’s happy. I can even pet him without Thisbe biting his balls off.
I have no doubt our dogs love my wife. I feed them, walk them, give them treats, tummy rubs, etc, but the second my wife walks in the door, I don’t exist.