I’ve always been fascinated by issues relating to the emotional intelligence of dogs. The great challenge to understanding how our dogs really think and feel is to acknowledge what we do not know rather than insist that we do know because our dogs are special and look at us lovingly.

Next to the Judge Judy’s, the  second most obnoxious sub-culture online are the know-it-alls, they seem to thrive in the animal world.

People tell me every day that they know just what their dogs are thinking and feeling, even though biologists and scientists have been struggling to figure it out for centuries. Whenever I write about this, I tell myself “I don’t know, remember that I don’t know.” That is the pathway to understanding.

For anyone interested in this subject (I’ve been reading books and journals about it for years) I’d recommend the wonderful new book  Mama’s Last Hug by the famed primatologist Frans de Waal. He has written that “emotions are everywhere in the animal kingdom, from fish to birds to insects and even in the brainy mollusks such as the octopus.”

Fairness matters to monkeys, de Waal writes, “when food offered to their social partners is of higher quality than what they themselves receive they become highly agitated.”

Pigs experience hope, he believes. If raised humanely, they anticipate good treatment from humans. I believe that dogs also experience hope, border collies never give up on the idea that they will have work to go when they go outside.

Fairness matters to dogs too, researchers believe. The Clever Dog Lab in Vienna tested the sensitivity of dogs to  inequity by asking two of them to give a paw to a human experiment.

Without receiving a reward, both dogs would so so many times in a row. But if one of them received a piece of bread for the action, whereas the other received nothing, the latter would give up and refuse.

Like people, all dogs are different. Some are generous, some are not.

I’ve tested this theory on my dogs with mixed results. Bud, a generous creature, will drop a treat on the ground if I don’t also give on to Fate or Red. Red will take a treat whether the others get one or not. Fate will steal Bud’s treat (not Red’s) any time she can, regardless of who gets one or doesn’t. She is a wonderful dog, but not a generous dog.

Bud is a profoundly generous creature, he will drop a treat if the other dogs don’t get one first.

I do see fairness in dogs that live together, I see it when it comes to moving through doors, eating from bowls of food or in training environments, sharing a small dog bed.  I do see that they are aware of what each other is doing and receiving.

The hard thing about writing about dogs and their emotions is the know-it-all gene that seems to course through the genes of so many dog lovers. If you read the comments that appear about this story, you will find many dog owners saying their dogs “absolutely’ have human-like emotions, they see no difference between instincts and emotions.

The problem with this is that is blocks learning, if you know everything, you have nothing to learn. This is why I remind myself daily of how little I know about the world.

With dogs, we know what we see on the outside, we don’t yet know what they feel on the inside because they can’t tell us and we don’t yet have the tools for seeing for ourselves.

Still, there is no doubt that dogs and other animals have emotions, the trick is that we have to be wary of putting our emotions into their heads, because we  have no other language for them than our own. It is clear they have emotions, just not our emotions.

Generally, we “know” what we want and need to know, scientists have to have some proof.

de Wall is also convinced that animals  have a basic sense of fairness, something that is necessary for them to survive in packs or out in the world.

With animals like dogs, I believe that emotion- based reactions have a huge advantage over instinctive and reflexive behaviors.  As deWall notes in  his book, emotion-based responses pass through a filter of experience and learning known as appraisal.

Instincts, on the other hand, are instant and impulsive, they are knee-jerk reactions, they require no thought or calculation, and they are useless to behaviorists in a world that changes so rapidly.

Emotions are considered much more adaptable because they operate like intelligence.  They allow decisions, but only after some process of evaluation. Instincts don’t take time out to evaluate things, they just respond. Animals can and do evaluate many things, de Waal insists.

The rule I use – and I was  happy to see deWall advance this idea –  is that we can only be sure of what we see on the outside with dogs, we need to accept that we don’t know what they are feeling.

We don’t speak their language and feelings, as opposed to instincts, must be spoken and described to be known. No one can look inside of us or them and say for certain what it is we are feeling.

If I sob and tear up on the outside, people can see that I am sad. If I glower, they see I am angry.  They can look at my face to see I am frightened.

The same is true of dogs, but that doesn’t mean I know what they are thinking or feeling inside. In my years of dog writing, I have seen that dogs are exploitive and adaptive, they become what we need them to be, given the chance. And we see in them what we need to see.

Instincts are things we can’t control, emotions can be controlled. Dogs, like people, may not be in full control of emotions, but we are not slaves to them either.

“This,” writes deWall, “is why you should never say “my emotions took over” as an excuse for something stupid you did, because you let your emotions take over.”

I apply this idea all the time to dog training, I always try to consider what the dog can control and what he or she can’t. I accept what is beyond them but I also hold them responsible for what is within their grasp and capabilities.

I love reading about the emotional intelligence of dogs. The less I think I know, the more I learn. The more I learn, the better the life I can offer my dogs.

For me, it is imperative to recognize that they are not just like us, they are an alien,  radically different species of animal. Anybody who tells you without reservation that they know what is going on inside their dog’s head is not a friend to dogs. They are thinking of themselves.

Dogs are loaded with emotions, and with emotional intelligence,  but they are not loaded with my emotions, or my intelligence. My task is to understand theirs. And to always be humble. There is so much about them that we do not know, that I do not know.

I say that as often as I remember to.