How Do Dogs Experience Emotion?

When your dog looks at you with those big eyes, is he saying "I love you?" Well, scientific research hasn't been able to tell us much about the source of emotions through different applications of the brain, even though we all know that the guy who cuts you off in traffic elicits a different response from you than coming home to your significant other who's wearing that "special something."

Trying to determine what goes through your pup's mind as he looks at you is even more difficult. However, we want to think that our pets truly feel love and affection towards us. Or we want to think that they do feel guilty about that little piddle spot you just found on the carpet, or that they feel fancy (or embarrassed) when you dress them up in their doggy sweaters.

So how do you tell? Is it body language? In their eyes? Do they react differently to different emotional stimuli, like getting a treat vs. being disciplined? Do they feel love, joy, fear, shame, hope? The animal psychologists and behaviorists are still trying to answer that question, but here's what we can look at so far.

Let's look at revenge. Sometime, if we want to get back at a person who we feel has wronged us, we think revenge. It's a conscious decision that a human can make to come up with a type of revenge, and enact it. Or even just thinking it through without actually going through with it can make us feel better in our minds. Dogs don't necessarily work that way. Your dog doesn't have the capacity to choose to chew up your slippers because you swatted him with that rolled-up newspaper for pooing on the floor. He's not going to scratch up the wall in the bedroom, because you locked him in there while you and your family were enjoying a succulent roast beef dinner. That ability requires something called "theory of mind," and dogs just don't have it.

A dog can only see the world from his dog perspective, and not from a human's. That's why they do best when they're controlled and treated based on the thought process of a canine mind, and not the owner's mind. He doesn't understand that you took away a treat he found under the couch, because you were just about to give him breakfast. He's not going to go seek out your favorite shoes and make them his personal chew toy in response. If he does, more than likely it's because there he's excited, or frustrated, about something else entirely. Maybe a break in his normal routine, or strange visitors in the house for the first time.

If that helps you understand your dog's thought process, than you can go about altering his thoughts to create a mood that is in contrast with the mood that causes him to misbehave. It's a concept called the principle of competing motivations: A dog cannot feel two opposing emotions at the same time!