Can pets like cats and dogs actually feel love (man, horse, owner)
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Do wild animals that live in packs feel love for their pack mates?
Do the mothers feel love for their children, and then feel extreme sadness when one of the young die? What is the motivated factors that makes mother mammals raise their young for a bit?
By all appearances, cats and dogs do. I don't know enough about other animals to know about them. Except primates, who also feel love and all the emotions.
Throughout history, humans have underestimated the intelligence and attributes of other animals of the earth, as well as our human ancestors.
We can't know if it's exactly like the love that humans feel (well, not all humans feel love; psychopaths and sociopaths seem incapable of it). But for all intents and purposes, they feel love. They may be more pragmatic about it...accepting that their companion is gone, for example, and not hovering about a dead body. But we all know the stories about pets going into long term mourning, when their human owner dies or goes away, or their pet companion has.
This makes sense, in order for them to survive. They know the difference between love and fear and anger and hate. They remember if someone was mean to them. So it follows that they would remember if someone was kind to them, and how they feel about people and other animals.
This comes from the Christian bible that says that "man has dominion over the animals." That one idea has wrought so much pain and anguish in the world.
I am glad people are waking up.
Yes, we are mammals!!!!
Well, it says that in the "Jewish" Bible too.
However, there is also a verse that says, "a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast."
This modern human disagrees with you.
We cannot be reduced to a chemical reaction.
We are nothing but chemical reactions. Well, electro-chemical. We are just one big bag of chemicals, all controlled by DNA. It is really pretty amazing when you think of it. It started as a chemical reaction 2 billion years ago and has grown and evolved to what you see today. And the really amazing thing is we have this odd ability to contemplate this whole thing with our brains, which are also just an electrochemical process.
We are nothing but chemical reactions. Well, electro-chemical. We are just one big bag of chemicals, all controlled by DNA. It is really pretty amazing when you think of it. It started as a chemical reaction 2 billion years ago and has grown and evolved to what you see today. And the really amazing thing is we have this odd ability to contemplate this whole thing with our brains, which are also just an electrochemical process.
Then I claim that my dog and I both came from the same bowl of primordial soup. We were connected together in The Beginning and are connected together now.
I call it love and I felt it a little while ago when I placed his head on my knee for no apparent reason. It felt good, so it is.
Of course they can. They know when they are bad or good from our reactions. They get super excited when we come home and the look in their eyes let's you know they love you as much as you love them, maybe even more.
A little Banty hen came over to us from the neighbors and we adopted each other. She would follow us from room to room, cried when we were out of sight, and would sit on us in bed, in the morning. She wanted to be held and cuddled whenever she could. Food was not an issue or motivator for her. She didn't like other people, just us. We took her on several road trips and she loved riding in the car too.
Who would think a chicken could feel so much! She was so special (and we've had every sort of pet)
and we certainly loved each other.
"Love" is a little squirt of dopamine into the right place in our brain at the right time. This is true in people and in animals. Humans interpret that as something we call "love". Who knows how animals interpret it but I doubt it is the same. With highly social animals, which includes wolves and ants, I imagine it is pleasurable and that promotes the socialization.
We humans romanticize the biology behind this. I really doubt that humans 10,000 years ago when we were hunter/gatherers had a notion of love. Love is a modern thing we have dreamed up.
I think you may be confusing romantic love and the rush and high associated with it with the "love" most people are talking about here. This feeling we get and give with animals is more closely associated with the love you feel toward a close family member or a platonic friend.
The two are totally different. When I am at a loss for words and can't explain something well, I turn to music at times. These songs simplify my thoughts; humans frequently when communicating need words most times to express their feelings toward one another (and even then we still mess it up). Said most eloquently here by the great Elton John in one of his best songs:
IF that is the case .... what a wonderful stroke of good fortune for us!!!
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