People have absolute ideas about their dogs, perhaps because they love them so much. They project their own thoughts and emotions onto them, and see what they need to see reflected back. It is difficult not to do this, and many people believe it is proper and appropriate to attribute all kinds of emotions to dogs. People tell me all the time what their dogs are thinking, how jealous they are, how sad, how abused, how lonely. I’ve thought a great deal about this in my life with dogs, and in my research about dogs, and I have come to understand that everybody believes what they need to believe and in that sense, everybody is correct. There is all sorts of research underscoring every point of view – I read a lot of behavioral journals and there is nothing remotely resembling consensus about what dogs think or feel. These theories become a crutch sometimes, they spare us the hard work of thinking and observing for ourselves.

And in my own work and life, I prefer to lean on my own observations and experiences rather than on the journal that supports my ideas. I’ve had a dog every day of my life, written eight books about them, talked to countless researchers, vets, behaviorists, academics. I’m pretty much where I started out. In my life with dogs, I have never witnessed grieving, separation anxiety, or anything resembling jealousy, all things I am repeatedly told dogs feel. Is this because of the way I get my dogs? Perhaps. I have had purebred and mixed breed, rescue and breeder dogs and I am careful about temperament and background.

But I also lean on the logic of intuition as well as science. Dogs do not have our language, vocabulary or conscience. They are almost totally dependent creatures, they are not able to live on their own for the most part, find their own food. They do not organize politically to stop abuse or improve the quality of dog food, nor do they elect leaders. When they have leaders, it is dominance and strength that decide, not democracy. Nor do they choose us. They are not in any way related to us as a species, they do not have our neural systems, genetic background. They do not live as long, and show little of the reasoning powers of the human being. They do not have words, but images and instincts, both of which are their true language I believe. They are opportunistic and adaptable. Despite our need to see them as loving us only, millions of them comfortably get re-homed every year, and they don’t grieve themselves to death for their previous homes.

Dogs love being alone and doing nothing in particular, yet hundreds of thousands of them are now on medications to help them deal with being apart from us, in my book one of the cruelest imaginable projections of human emotions onto animals. I do see animal emotions in my dogs – arousal, affection, protection, curiosity, among others. Mostly these are instinctive things, and they are not cognitive in the sense that they are not linked to words as our emotions often are. They are felt, not thought.

I am odd in that I have no wish to make my dogs like me, or to see them that way. I love them because they are not like me. For me, this is not argument. People who feel differently could well be correct. My life is not an argument, nor are my feelings about dogs. We each have our own path, our own needs and I respect mine and yours. I believe the true dog advocate fights to respect their true and emotional animal nature, not to drown them in ours. That is not a view most animal lovers wish to embrace. And so dogs are increasingly living human versions of lives, not their own. They do less, think less, evolve less. A loss, I think. I am fortunate and grateful to have chosen a life for my dogs in which they can live their lives, if not fully, as close to it as I can get them. That is rewarding to me, and I see that it is very good for them. They are healthy, content, peaceful and responsive. Not me, I think, but the lives they lead. It has never occurred to me that they would be anxious when I go shopping, and perhaps because of this, they never are.

I watch Frieda and Red, two very disparate and different dogs – different breeding, experience, interaction with humans. They are at ease with one another, and each morning, when the chores are done, they seek out the sun together, and soak up its rays. Do they love one another? Are they pals?

Maybe, but I think they are doing one of the most elemental things that dogs and cats instinctively do – be warm in the cold.