Patricia McConnell, animal behaviorist and columnist in BARK magazine has written about the emotional lives of dogs. She makes the excellent point that dogs have brain structures similar to those of humans–limbic system and all. From a biological point of view, there’s evidence that dogs do share human emotions, presumably love as well.

I suppose a definition for love might be useful before stating that dogs love. Love makes us do things we don’t always want to do, just because we care about another being. (See Corinthians for more elegant phrasing.) My dog Amie demonstrated this behavior when my father was in a nursing home after surgery. Amie doesn’t like groups of strangers, overheated places, linoleum floors, or being touched by people she doesn’t know. In her first visit to see my father, she encountered all of these things in a skilled nursing care unit. The next time we came back to visit, Amie PULLED on the leash to get to the door of the facility so she could see my dad. I don’t know what else to call Amie’s behavior except a manifestation of love. Dog treat bribery would not be enough to make Amie return to a place that made her uncomfortable. Something more powerful had to have been going on.

More so than with love, I see this in end of life or injury situations with dogs. We see humans who are ill or in pain or dying, and we laud them for their courage. We say they’re fighters–admirable for overcoming their adversity. When we see dogs in the same situation, we praise their courage, too. But is it courage or merely endurance of suffering because there is no choice? I’ve see the “courage” dodge used too often by humans who self-seekingly want to squeeze out a few more months of life for the animals they love. The worst example was the little dog who goes around on her two back legs. That’s not courage she’s showing–it’s sheer endurance, made all the more pitiable by the fact that it could be corrected by a little wheeled cart. Dog courage is quite different. It’s their response to whatever threatens themselves or whoever (humans or other dogs) is part of their life. It’s not lesser just because it’s not human. (Dogs don’t hate, either.)

Not surprisingly, I’m in the “dogs don’t love” camp. I think that what we have is a deep bond based on our proximity, our affection and affinity for each other, and our hopefully mutual loyalty. It really surpasses love in some respects. We call it “love” because that’s the closest human approximation we can come up with for it.

Anne