Do cats and dogs actually feel affection when you treat them right or is it really just an instinct for “more food and drink” etc?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen dogs, cats and other domestic animals smile because they’re happy and show love to their owners for treating them right.
Yeah I see memes but those are either photoshopped or snapped at the perfect moment to make it look like they’re smiling.
They absolutely do! Some animals mate for life. Some mourn when one of their own dies (see whales, elephants). Parrots who are lonely may self-mutilate. Dogs can remember you and get so excited to see you, even after being separated for years. Interspecies friendships exist. It’s like… I don’t see how people can still think animals DON’T have emotions.
They just don’t make faces like humans do. Although interestingly, dogs developed eyebrow muscles that give them more human-like expressions, which therefore strengthens our bond with them.
I’ve absolutely seen a pet look at someone with, “love in its eyes”. That content squint and gaze. My heart! 🥹
No, only humans are capable of thought and emotion. every other animal on this planet is just running a basic logic loop and will despawn if you move more than 100 yards away from them.
They got us in the first half
I don’t think I’ve ever seen dogs, cats and other domestic animals smile because they’re happy
The dog wags it’s tail to show happiness/excitement. Come on, have you never heard about that?
“Smiling” = showing the teeth would indicate a threat of aggression.
It’s not only barring teeth, dogs also do a “submissive smile” in some cases, to show they are not a threat. Not seen much but when we got our second dog she was very insecure and “smiled” a lot. Definitely not for showing happines but I think I read our smiles have similar origins.
Do animals feel love and emotion?
Yes. Animals absolutely have emotions. In fact, many animals, like cats, are extremely emotional creatures, on account of not having as highly developed parts of the brain that deal with emotional regulation. Affection? Absolutely. Love? Yes, but not generally in the same ways as people.
Do cats and dogs actually feel affection when you treat them right or is it really just an instinct for “more food and drink” etc?
I have a little cat that adores me. He likes come right up to my face and head-butt me forcefully (a behavior called bunting) and he likes to fall asleep gazing at me. Domestic cats and dogs are social creatures. Left to their own devices, they will engage in social behaviors unrelated to survival and biology.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen dogs, cats and other domestic animals smile because they’re happy and show love to their owners for treating them right.
Oh they absolutely do smile, just differently than humans. Cats are especially subtle abd communicative in their body language. It’s also with noting that what humans think of as smiling, to most animals is an aggression display.
Yeah I see memes but those are either photoshopped or snapped at the perfect moment to make it look like they’re smiling.
Domestic dogs and cats communicate a lot with body language, the majority of it being pure emotion. Their body language, however, is different from our own. You have to meet them halfway in communication; learning to listen to what they are saying.
Nothing quite like the deep satisfied purring “sigh” of a happy cat falling asleep on you 😊
Funny how smiling is seen as agressive as a person who don’t show teeth when smiling
Yeah. It’s the showing teeth (or that thereof) that in many animals is a threat display. Think of it like a non-verbal way of saying “See these teeth? How’d you like them in your face? Because that’s gonna happen if you don’t step the fuck off.”
I find that my cats and dog DO smile with their mouths/faces closed when getting a particularly nice petting. It seems a bit subtle because they’re smaller than us but, rather like a little smirk (best is when my little cat gets a particularly nice nose scritching and he can’t keep his mouth closed because it feels too good and a loud purr escapes from between his little fangs).
Smiling with the mouth isn’t a universal expression, different animals express happiness in different ways
Showing teeth is a sign of aggression for a lot of animals. Be careful smiling at monkeys.
Absolutely! There are studies which show that cats develop affection for their owners, and have several ways of making that affection known. Dolphins are able to feel both love and also grief and there’s a growing amount of research which shows that birds are able to feel joy, love and grief. Many animals also mate for life!
Not only dogs and cats are individuals who have their own way of showing how they feel and how much they love you.
Most people would probably switch to a vegan lifestyle if they realised how much we underestimate animals (and overestimate ourselves)
I struggle with this all the time. I hate watching cute piggy videos because I remember them next time I eat bacon.
Well, why not start with gradual changes?
If you feel bad, you already made the first step: listening to yourself because you already realised how wrong it is.
If you need motivation, watch dominion. I think it’s fair to say that people should have footage like that in the back of their mind when they want to enjoy animal products.
You might not believe me, but changing things like your diet to be free of any animal cruelty feels fucking great, and it just takes a certain amount of time to learn new recipes and then it’s just easy going.
I can help you with whatever you struggle with if you ever need some help
Thanks, I probably will change soon, but I have to convince my partner first…
My cats eat a diet almost entirely of delicious, delicious meat.
None of it is made of cats.
Nor do I eat cat meat.
There’s nothing wrong with being omnivorous as long as you’re ethical about it.
There’s also nothing wrong with veganism as long as you’re ethical about it.
I draw the line at cannibalism, though. Way too easy to spread human pathogens that way.
What? You don’t eat cats, okay. But what’s the point?
There is nothing wrong with being an omnivore lol. Sure, it’s just what you are. Does being an omnivore mean you HAVE TO eat meat or do you think that the scientific consensus might be that we don’t have to?
And if we don’t have to, what’s the main reason why you still eat it? Taste? Personal pleasure? Do you think that this is a good justification for harming other individuals?
You can’t be ethical about “killing individuals that don’t want to die for trivial reasons like taste pleasure” which might sound a bit overexaggerated at first, however if you look it up and find out that you don’t have to eat any meat, you’ll see that it’s exactly that. It’s not ethical.
Test if by changing the situation while you keep the logic. Tell me where personal sensory pleasure is a legit justification to bring harm or death upon individuals
An omnivore is predisposed to eat anything. Absent synthetic food processing? Yes, an omnivore must eat both meat and plants.
Humans are the only species (that we know of) who chooses whether or not to eat something based on a system of ethics. But at the same time, most of the world doesn’t have the privilege to decide whether or not to eat only specific things. In parts of the world, if you don’t eat meat, you don’t eat. In other parts of the world, if you don’t eat plants, you don’t eat. It’s simply nature.
I don’t criticize your reasons for not eating meat. And I don’t criticize your perspectives and responses to me, because I understand your viewpoint. But if you think your arguments are novel to me, you’re wrong. And if you think I eat meat only for flavor, you’re also wrong.
All that said, Americans do eat way too much meat. We need to reduce the amount of animal protein we take in - not because of ethics, but because it’s unhealthy to overindulge. Similarly, we need to reduce the amount of sugar we take in.
Reality is complicated. I don’t deal in absolutes.
An omnivore is predisposed to eat anything. Absent synthetic food processing? Yes, an omnivore must eat both meat and plants.
No. That is just plain wrong. By the same logic, you are predisposed to rape when you have a penis. Saying that an omnivore must eat both (meat and plants) is unscientific. I gave you the hint that there is something like scientific consensus about this topic, but you still refuse to open your mind about this topic and look for some facts. That’s sad
But at the same time, most of the world doesn’t have the privilege to decide whether or not to eat only specific things
Why do you talk about the world now? Did I say everybody has to eat plant based? No. I just pointed out how it’s unethical to pay for innocent beings to suffer and die when the only reason you have is “I like meat, it tastes good” (while there are definitly thousand plant based dishes with the same taste experience available, easily)
It’s simply nature.
Appeal to nature fallacy
I don’t criticize your reasons for not eating meat.
You don’t criticize that I refuse to pay for innocent animals to suffer and die without any necessity? Why would you? Or do you state this, just so you can say “so don’t criticize my way”, because that would make no sense
But if you think your arguments are novel to me, you’re wrong. And if you think I eat meat only for flavor, you’re also wrong.
I don’t care about if they’re novel to you. You fail to explain how it’s justifyable to pay for animals to suffer and die. You want to claim there is a necessity? You fail to give one
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not about you. I don’t care about you and your choices. However, you responded here saying “There’s nothing wrong with being omnivorous as long as you’re ethical about it.” which is simply absurd, so now we kind of have to go down this road.
We need to reduce the amount of animal protein we take in - not because of ethics, but because it’s unhealthy to overindulge.
So you can’t justify the suffering and death of these innocent animals, therefore you just pretend that there is no ethical conflict?
Reality is complicated. I don’t deal in absolutes.
Reality in regard to this isn’t complicated. Go and watch dominion, then come back and tell me the reason why those animals deserve that, even though there is no actual necessity for that
No, it’s really simple. There were no absolutes in this discussion.
I’m not trying to justify anything to you, or to anyone else.
Ethics don’t exist in the world outside of humans. That’s simply a fact.
And many different human ethical systems exist. If you believe that eating animals is always unethical, that is your ethic. If that means you believe I am unethical, then that viewpoint is valid within your system of ethics.
It’s not possible to sway somebody by contradicting their own ethics; the only way to change a person’s ethics is to appeal to them by showing the commonalities between belief systems, then showing them the benefits of certain variations that you believe.
Neither you nor I like animal suffering. The difference is, I’ve seen plenty of animals lead relaxed, happy lives, that end painlessly before the animal is turned into meat. I understand that the notion repulses you.
I’ve also seen plenty of “free” animals who’ve led short, painful unhappy lives. I’m sure you and I can both agree that this is not good. And if the animal led a short, painful, unhappy life in captivity directly because it was destined to be food? That’s an inherently bad thing.
I’m not criticizing your viewpoint, and I’m not trying to justify my viewpoint to you. But my viewpoint exists, and many people hold it.
And many different human ethical systems exist. If you believe that eating animals is always unethical, that is your ethic. If that means you believe I am unethical, then that viewpoint is valid within your system of ethics.
Sorry, but that is just a very poor try of avoiding the argument. What you say here is basically true, because if I move to other countries, I can do bad things that are under their umbrella of “local ethics”. Like moving somewhere east where women are still seen as property and where I can abuse them.
Does that mean that we cannot challange “local ethics”? No. You can challange any ethical standpoint. And you should.
But you avoid the core argument by stating empty phrases like the one above :/
the only way to change a person’s ethics is to appeal to them by showing the commonalities between belief systems, then showing them the benefits of certain variations that you believe.
In this case I can simply use logic. Logic shows that there is no justification for the suffering and deaths of all these innocent animals as long as there is no necessity for that. Don’t believe me? Try to justificate it right now :)
Neither you nor I like animal suffering. The difference is, I’ve seen plenty of animals lead relaxed, happy lives, that end painlessly before the animal is turned into meat. I understand that the notion repulses you.
I grew up with many animals that all had to die. I saw how they died, with pain and without pain. But the difference is that, even though I was tought that this “is OK”, I challanged this belief system, which is quite easy. And the main difference between me and other people is that I accept if I’m wrong, I do admit that and, after this first step, I change things.
I saw that it’s wrong to just consume and not give a fuck about the environment. That’s why I’m changing a lot even though it’s highly uncomfortable at times.
I saw that it’s wrong to judge people. So I stopped that
I saw that it’s wrong to pay for animals to suffer and die, when there is no necessity to do so. That’s why I started a vegan lifestyle
You kind of explained your viewpoint, but you didn’t say anything constructive in regard to the arguments. So it’s nice that you try to explain your viewpoint, that’s something I really appriciate, but you should atleast try to state some arguments to the arguments that have been told. Right?
Only a sith deals in absolutes.
Or an engineer.
If you kill a sentient being for pleasure against its will, there is nothing that could make it ethical.
Downvoting this guy for stating this simple fact won’t change the fact.
It’s like throwing a middle finge at a person in a discussion where the other person tells you a simple truth that you just don’t like. You’d look like a fool. So why do it here? It’s infantil. Just go into a nice discussion
Tangential, agenda-ridden, off-topic.
Whats your standpoint on a vegetarian diet?
“I’m not vegan because I love animals. I’m vegan because I hate plants.”
-SMBC, I think
That statement is untrue, because many different sets of ethics disagree with you.
They definitely do show sympathy, sadness, fear and joy, which are unrelated to being rewarded with food and trained behaviour.
I don’t see why they shouldn’t have a full range of emotions. It seems simpler and more natural than developing a transactional response only.
The bigger question is what emotions even are. If it’s a chemical or biological reaction then it’d be weird if other mammals didn’t have about the same emotions as humans.
It’s difficult to see how an animal feels unless you know it well. I can mostly see how my own dog is doing, but I have no idea what mood a random dog on the street is in.
You know that feeling you get when you look into your dog’s eyes? The same parts of your dog’s brain became active, so they’re probably feeling similar emotions at that moment.
Neurobiologically they absolutely do. Most animals have amygdala, for starters, so they feel a lot of basic emotions. As for love, one would only need to ask whether they can do things such as produce oxytocin, recognize faces or voices, desire touch, etc.
Best answer here as it touches on inarguable facts rather than feelings. NOTE: Emotions are mainly a mammal thing, though reptiles and birds have a sort-of amygdala, not the same though.
And an interesting bit for OP: Dogs DO smile! At the least we can that we selected for more expressive facial muscles in dogs. In contrast, my pig has about zero emotional indicators, though he seems smarter than any dog I’ve met.
Dogs were shaped during the course of domestication both in their behavior and in their anatomical features. Here we show that domestication transformed the facial muscle anatomy of dogs specifically for facial communication with humans. A muscle responsible for raising the inner eyebrow intensely is uniformly present in dogs but not in wolves. Behavioral data show that dogs also produce the eyebrow movement significantly more often and with higher intensity than wolves do, with highest-intensity movements produced exclusively by dogs. Interestingly, this movement increases paedomorphism and resembles an expression humans produce when sad, so its production in dogs may trigger a nurturing response. We hypothesize that dogs’ expressive eyebrows are the result of selection based on humans’ preferences.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1820653116
Far more out there if you want less technical resources:
There has been at least one study which has shown that when a dog and their owner look into each other’s eyes, both experience a release of oxytocin. The humans experience a greater release, but the dogs receive some as well.
Yes. We had a cat that’d sit with us when we weren’t feeling well. If you were lying in bed with a migraine he’d snuggle in and rest his chin on your forehead. He could tell when we were ill and would always settle in with us including missing mealtime.
I don’t know about smiling but cats and dogs absolutely feel emotion and affection.
You may be interested in a paper Thomas Negal wrote about 50 years ago called “What is it like to be a bat?”
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf
It’s not just about emotional states, which we can observe the behavioral states of but don’t know what it is like to experience as other animals. It’s about experience and consciousness which I think speaks to the underlying question of when other animals experience an emotional state if we can relate it to our own phenomenology for similar appearing states.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen dogs, cats and other domestic animals smile because they’re happy and show love to their owners for treating them right.
My dog “smarls” (smile+snarl) at me when I come home. We’ve taken a still photo of him while smarling and it looks horrifically vicious. It’s like a stock photo captioned “aggressive dog”. But he’s actually happy. The difference is body movement. An aggressive or dangerous dog will be very still, just showing teeth, usually growling and backs away from a threat or quickly lunge if it gets too close. A smarl is usually accompanied by a wagging tail and body wiggles and slowly approaching to get pet.
My dog definitely loves me. I feel the love every day from her. I can feel it in my bones. That animal loves and trusts me.
Others have cited sources but yes, dogs and cats definitely feel love.
There is a whole book about this, “Dogs Never Lie About Love”, by Jeffrey Masson.
