The dogs seemed excited to see us, to have us back. Everywhere I go, we end up discussing what animals think, or what we believe they think. I keep saying, we don’t know, we don’t have a language. When dogs are aroused, it looks a lot to us like they are happy. Or playful. Or loving and pleased. We need to feel these things, we want to feel them, we almost reflexively put these ideas into the heads of animals. They are sad, resentful, anxious.

We love to feel this way about them, so we reinforce these feelings, our ideas about their emotions. Dogs get very excited to see the people who walk them, feed them, love them, give them life and affection. So, I saw this week, do Dolphins and Sea Lions and parrots. I know donkeys and cats do as well.  Dogs are very happy to be fed. To see the human beings they associate with attention and nourishment, with the outside world, with walks, smells, stimulation.

One of the wonderful things about dogs is that they display emotions so easily and continuously. It’s a ballet. The more they do it, the more we do it. As Brian Hare of Harvard wrote, dogs have adapted so well to life with humans because they are the leading manipulators of human emotions in the animal world. Definitely true in my life.