Dog emotions- please explain.

[I.Dup.]

Well with all of these dog threads, I wanted to ask about something I am curious about. We own our first dog in many years, he is now 7 months old. I am really curious just how much dogs really can feel, emotionally. So can you share with me examples of when you know your dog has felt emotional about something (love, sadness, hurt, rejected, etc)?

[kalanamak]

Well with all of these dog threads, I wanted to ask about something I am curious about. We own our first dog in many years, he is now 7 months old. I am really curious just how much dogs really can feel, emotionally. So can you share with me examples of when you know your dog has felt emotional about something (love, sadness, hurt, rejected, etc)?

 

I knew when my Dane had gotten into the trash because he'd greet us as the door with his head hanging very low, instead of nibbling our fingers and felling trees with his tail-swings.

[Laura in NC]

Our dog puts her tail between her legs and hunches her shoulders when she knows she's done something she's not supposed to do. She also pouts for a couple of days after we bring her home from the vet. She LOVES the vet due to them being friends with our family, so she has always gotten to play with their dogs at the vet's office. She also gets very excited when she knows she's going to see them. Another thing she does, is give my parents a very sad eye look when they leave. She really plays it up for them, looking sad when they are getting ready to leave. She loves it when my parents come visit. My mom always brings dog biscuits so she knows she gets them when we tell her Grammy is coming. She gets very excited and waits by the door for them when we tell her.

 

We say she acts like Snoopy, due to her emotions. If she doesn't get something she wants, she acts very sad and depressed. But when she's happy, she's really happy and excited. She also tries to cover things up she knows she's not supposed to have, such as kids toys, by sitting on them.

[I.Dup.]

Our dog puts her tail between her legs and hunches her shoulders when she knows she's done something she's not supposed to do. She also pouts for a couple of days after we bring her home from the vet. She LOVES the vet due to them being friends with our family, so she has always gotten to play with their dogs at the vet's office. She also gets very excited when she knows she's going to see them. Another thing she does, is give my parents a very sad eye look when they leave. She really plays it up for them, looking sad when they are getting ready to leave. She loves it when my parents come visit. My mom always brings dog biscuits so she knows she gets them when we tell her Grammy is coming. She gets very excited and waits by the door for them when we tell her.

 

We say she acts like Snoopy, due to her emotions. If she doesn't get something she wants, she acts very sad and depressed. But when she's happy, she's really happy and excited. She also tries to cover things up she knows she's not supposed to have, such as kids toys, by sitting on them.

 

This is hilarious!! And very cute! :D

[Laura in NC]

This is hilarious!! And very cute! :D

 

Thank you. I grew up with an outside dog, so I had no idea dogs had these kind of emotions. She is an indoor dog so we get to see all of this. I think the craziest thing she has ever done is figure out that if she jumped up and pressed the ice maker, she could get ice out. We had to stop her from doing it but it was really funny when she did it.

 

Another incident we had her was with a baby bunny in a nest in the yard. She took it out and decided to play with it. She never hurt it but took it around the yard with her, like it was a puppy. We got it away from her and took it to a rescue so she wouldn't try and take it out again. She pouted about that also.

 

p.s. I'm trying quoting for the first time, so I hope it worked. :)

[jujsky]

My mom's friend had a dog who loved Christmas. Every year he would wake up in the morning, fish all of his wrapped gifts out from under the tree and put them in a separate pile, and then wake up the family. He would rip into them one at a time, and trot each present around to show the family members after he opened them, wagging his tail and smiling the whole time.

 

My dogs have never done anything near that cool, but when they've done something wrong, I know it the second I open the door. They barrel over me and run out the door! When I bring them back in and say, "What's this?" they hang their heads. We have a portion off the yard sectioned of for them (the poop yard) and the largest part of the yard is for us. If I ask, "Do you want to go to the big yard?" they get all excited and run to the fence. Elsa prefers it if I stay out there and play with them. She gets a big smile on her face. If I tell her I can't play, but I'll be back to bring them in in awhile, she stops smiling and looks sad. She has a very expressive face. I swear she understands me when I'm talking to her. Logan is a little attention hog -- definitely the baby of the family. If we give Elsa any attention, he'll do whatever he can to put the focus back on him. He'll get in between us, climb on us-- whatever. The other day, she brought her tug rope over to play with me. I was tugging it, and Logan came over and grabbed my end so I let go. Elsa growled at him, and normally he drops the rope when she does that -- she's the older and wiser dog and he gives her due reverence. Instead, he tugged her all the way around to the other side of rug, dropped the rope, scooped up another toy, and brought it over to me. He purposely took her away from me so he could play and have my full attention instead. He gets soooooo jealous!

Edited July 9, 2012 by jujsky

[laundrycrisis]

I had a young dog that I adopted from a shelter. She had been found wandering in the median of an interstate. When I decided to take her home, I put a collar on her and took her to my car.

 

Every time I gave her a bath, I would take it off so she could dry out well as her neck hair was very thick. She would run circles around her collar, barking, then run in to me bark, run back to the collar, run circles, etc. until I put it back on - then she was all-out happy. To her the collar meant she had a home.

 

When I was packing my house to move, she was laying in the corner completely despondent, all day. When the last item was out of the house, except her, she just looked so miserable. When I said come on, I'm done, let's go ! She looked at me with very sad eyes. I said hey, let's go ! She raised her eyebrows hopefully, gave a little wag. I said, come on, come on ! Come here ! When she realized I intended to take her with me, she freaked - ran around barking and jumping up with kisses for me and barking some more. That was when I figured out how she had lost her first home. :( She was happy and wiggly and beside herself all night long (kept me up) and ecstatic when we rolled out of town together the next morning.

 

This same dog, when she was mad, there was no mistake. She would hide from me. And then she would race out of hiding, look me right in the eye with a scowl, and pee a big puddle right in front of me, then run away and hide again. Adorable, right ? :lol: At least I always knew where I stood with her !

Edited July 9, 2012 by laundrycrisis

[justamouse]

When my Dd 17 came home from the hospital, he just knew she was hurting. He was so gentle with her, sniffed her operation site, walked so slowly beside her, never left her side, laid at the end of her bed for days. He was her shadow until she started feeling better.

 

When he's done something bad, he goes immediately to his crate. That's why I don't believe that dogs don't remember what they've done and can't be corrected.

 

He loves my brother. He *adores* my brother. Thor will lean on him the whole time he is here, sit at his feet, put his head under my brother's arm. It's a brogmance. I don't even have to tell the dog who's here, he knows the sound of my brother's truck.

 

When he's pissed he lets me know. He'll eat out of the garbage, steal stuff from recyclables, pee on the floor in BIG HUGE WIDE circles. Like, around the house, watering a fire.

Edited July 9, 2012 by justamouse

[jujsky]

I had a young dog that I adopted from a shelter. She had been found wandering in the median of an interstate. When I decided to take her home, I put a collar on her and took her to my car.

 

Every time I gave her a bath, I would take it off so she could dry out well as her neck hair was very thick. She would run circles around her collar, barking, then run in to me bark, run back to the collar, run circles, etc. until I put it back on - then she was all-out happy. To her the collar meant she had a home.

 

When I was packing my house to move, she was laying in the corner completely despondent, all day. When the last item was out of the house, except her, she just looked so miserable. When I said come on, I'm done, let's go ! She looked at me with very sad eyes. I said hey, let's go ! She raised her eyebrows hopefully, gave a little wag. I said, come on, come on ! Come here ! When she realized I intended to take her with me, she freaked - ran around barking and jumping up with kisses for me and barking some more. That was when I figured out how she had lost her first home. :( She was happy and wiggly and beside herself all night long (kept me up) and ecstatic when we rolled out of town together the next morning.

 

This same dog, when she was mad, there was no mistake. She would hide from me. And then she would race out of hiding, look me right in the eye with a scowl, and pee a big puddle right in front of me, then run away and hide again. Adorable, right ? :lol: At least I always knew where I stood with her !

 

She sounds like a great dog! For the life of me, I don't understand people who think dogs don't have emotions. If you live with dogs it's so clear that they do.

[ereks mom]

 

When I was packing my house to move, she was laying in the corner completely despondent, all day. When the last item was out of the house, except her, she just looked so miserable. When I said come on, I'm done, let's go ! She looked at me with very sad eyes. I said hey, let's go ! She raised her eyebrows hopefully, gave a little wag. I said, come on, come on ! Come here ! When she realized I intended to take her with me, she freaked - ran around barking and jumping up with kisses for me and barking some more. That was when I figured out how she had lost her first home. :( She was happy and wiggly and beside herself all night long (kept me up) and ecstatic when we rolled out of town together the next morning.

 

 

This made me tear up!

[Joker]

Our doggie puts his head low and tail between the legs when he's done anything wrong. We don't always know what it is but we go looking.:tongue_smilie:

 

He also smiles at us when we come home after being gone for a few hours. He only does this when we've been out a significant time and it's most definitely a smile ~ most of his teeth are showing and if we didn't know him we might be scared. :D

[Mommyof4ks]

Our dog knew when she did something wrong, and she would hide from us (and rightly so, I do not like picking up yucky trash off the floor lol).

 

When dh was out of town she would bark at every noise. I never figured out if she was scared like me or if she was just being extra vigilant lol.

 

The funniest thing she ever did was train us to get off of 'her' couch. She would go to the door and bark like she needed to go outside, and then she would run and jump in our spot when we went to open the door for her. Silly girl. It worked better on the kids and company, but she got us a few times too. ;) She could con food out of the kids by distracting them too. That was really funny to watch.

 

We miss our sweet doggy who died last year. :(

[chepyl]

My dog hides when he has been bad. If we go out for the day, he gets lonely and will get in the trash. When we come home he looks so guilty!

 

He popped in a pile of laundry this week. We were cleaning our room and he stayed in the room with us until we started to pick up the laundry....he ran away before we found th gift he had hidden.

 

He always stays close by when the kids are sick. He would stay at my feet 24/7 while I'm pregnant if we did not put him in bed at night.

[Perry]

 

This makes me laugh every time I see it.

[I.Dup.]

LOL, these stories are making me laugh and tear up! :crying:

 

"Brogmance" hahaha. Your Thor looked so scary and intimidating on the other thread, but I'm sure he's just a big teddy bear. :)

 

We can definitely tell when our Charles has done something wrong, and we "go searching for it" too. Sometimes he can't make it the whole night (he's still just a puppy) and in the morning sometimes he'll be so embarrassed he won't want to eat.

 

I guess I just didn't know how deeply dogs could feel, the last dog I had was when I was a kid and I didn't pay all that much attention to him (I was a kid and off playing and whatever). I think I just thought they immediately forgot everything and were too dumb to feel anything all that deeply. So these stories are very touching. It's been fun to have a dog. :001_smile:

[I.Dup.]

http://dailypicksandflicks.com/2012/06/29/daily-picdump-504/ermahgerd-brerdstercks-breadsticks-pug-ermahgerd-meme/

 

This one cracks us up too. :D

[swellmomma]

I am not noticing a lot in the way of emotions from my dogs other than the basics of getting in close for attention etc BUT Delilah does let me know when she is hurt, not by yelping but be running into my arms and squirming around until I tell her it's okay. 9/10 I am the one that accidently hurt her in the first place, as she and Onyx are literally under my feet all teh time so I step on them and trip over them etc. if she gets hurt she turns to me for reassurance.

 

She is my lovey pup so I am not sure what parts of what she does would count as emotion and what counts as simply a behaviour due to be a snuggle pup. The funniest was more a case of monkey see monkey do though, I was giving each of my kids a hug and kiss good night, so one by one they came up for a hug etc. After the 4th one finsihed their hug, Delilah jumped up and buried her head in my elbow with her paws on either side of me and gave me a hug.

 

They are both still so young I am not noticing much more than that constant plea for attention. THough I swear Delilah is lapping up how much trouble Onyx is in. The more trouble he gets in the more she jumps into my lap for hugs. Onyx is a going concern, between the pottying in the house, the barking and the destruction (my kitchen floor, sofa and ds13's bed have all been ripped up due to Onyx) today I finally had enough and told him if he was bad again I was turning him into a fur coat. I doubt he knew the words but he knew the tone, he went and laid down with 1 paw on my foot. Delilah can running over and shoved her head under my hand to be pet. It is like sibling rivalry and she is determined to be the favorite.

[hillfarm]

Not so sure about emotions, but it seems that our pug has an imagination. At night we have a bedtime ritual where dh and I go up and sit on dd's bed for prayers and a short chat before she goes to sleep. Of course the pug is in the middle of it.

 

She has developed a game where she will find a toy and bring it to dh. He then has to pretend to try to steal the toy from her. She will proceed to growl like a grizzly bear as long as he acts his part and says, "That's mine! That's my toy!", and tries to grab it. However, the minute he stops saying that, she calmly lets him pet her near the toy or have it. She doesn't respond at all if dd or I try to touch the toy or her face during the game. It's like she wants to imagine she is protecting her toy from a monster and so she gets dh to play that part.

 

If he stops playing but she wants more, she will shove the toy into his hand and vocalize with an amazing array of squeaks and grunts. She is the one who initiates this play. On the rare occasion that she wants to end it before he does, she will take the toy and turn her back to him. That is her signal to stop and he respects that.

 

At other times, she will play tug and other more normal dog games, and she never growls during those. Only during the Mine! game.

 

I think that if her mind is sophistocated enough to imagine, then it is probably complex enough to have some types of emotion.

[JudoMom]

You guys have probably seen this, but I love

.

[nono]

Each dog I've had has had several different types of wags to display what degree of happiness he/she was feeling. I always thought that was pretty sophisticated to be able to do that.

 

Every dog I've had has always remembered each person and place and whether or not it likes him/her/it. Years could pass between encounters and the memories were always steady.

 

The thought that dogs were dumb or emotionless never crossed my mind, but I have had the good fortune to always live among them. :)

[The Girls' Mom]

I've always had dogs, but our JRT that we have right now is probably the most expressive I've ever seen. You can tell, easily, when she is happy, sad, irritated, or guilty. Her guilty act is SO cute. We call it "going Dobby". She'll do it if she comes into the dining room while we are eating, or if she has gotten into something she shouldn't (which is rare). She GRINS when my FIL comes over. She loves that man. She also can understand a LOT of what we say. It is almost annoying...it's hard to slip things by her :lol:

[mom2scouts]

My in-laws had a dog who, when caught doing something wrong, would look really sad and then go sit in the corner with her nose against the corner. It was both sad and funny.

[Lady Florida.]

Our dog mopes around whenever ds is gone. He lays outside his bedroom door most of the day. When I come home from being out, he watches the front door, waiting for ds to follow me in. When I tell him, "I didn't bring your boy home yet.", he slinks off. He also spent several days missing, and looking for our older cat when he died recently. (Our younger cat did the same.)

 

When dh comes home, they have a ritual. Dh scratches Dingo's back as a greeting, then takes him outside. Even if Dingo just went out, he expects this to happen, and acts antsy if dh doesn't follow the routine.

 

We had a family dog that gave himself the job of taking care of my grandmother when she moved in with my mom. Her voice was weak, so she had a bell to call us with, but we didn't always hear it. The dog would let us know when she wanted something. At night he slept outside her bedroom door. We called it Granny Patrol, and at bedtime we'd tell him, "Time for Granny Patrol, Tuffy." He would immediately go lay outside her door.

 

A recent study indicates that dogs can understand human body language and eye contact as well as a six month old baby.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/dogs-follow-humans-gazes-infants-study/story?id=15291889

 

They understand us better than our closest animal relatives.*

 

*The article uses "could care less" instead of "couldn't care less". :tongue_smilie:

[Lady Florida.]

We call it "going Dobby".

 

 

:lol::lol: I'll have to remember that one.

[Lady Florida.]

My in-laws had a dog who, when caught doing something wrong, would look really sad and then go sit in the corner with her nose against the corner. It was both sad and funny.

 

We had a Shepherd/Collie mix when I was 9, who used to stick her head under the hassock when she did something wrong. Her big lanky body was sticking out, but apparently in her mind, she was hiding.

[Mom in High Heels]

Dogs have very complicated emotions. We've had many dogs over the years and they've all had their own personalities and emotions.

 

The small dog we have now used to be my mom's, but when her poodle died, he nearly grieved himself to death. He quit eating and when you weigh 3 and a half pounds, fully grown, you can't afford to not eat. When I came to visit and brought my dogs, he was so happy and finally started eating. When we left, he quit again. The vet suggested they get another dog to keep him company, but my mom was still so emotional over the poodle, she didn't think she could, so they asked us to take him. He's been happy and eating fine since (this was 4 years ago), except when one of our dogs passed away. Both he and our other dog were terribly down for months. She was our oldest dog and our "matriarch."

 

The poodle who passed was crazy. He practically worshiped my mother. Every time she left the house he would sit in the middle of the LR and howl until she came back. This seems sweet and cute until you house sit for the weekend and spend 3 days listening to almost constant howling. Ugh. I thought I was going to go nuts.

 

One time I stepped on his foot and he limped for a while and then was fine, but every time he saw me for about a month he would limp again. :glare:

 

When I was pg with Indy our oldest dog was very protective of me. She would lay against my belly every time we went to bed and didn't want anyone to get near me. This transferred to Indy once he was born. When James Bond deployed a few years ago, she moped for weeks and constantly ran to his side of the bed hoping she'd see him.

 

I ♥ dogs.

 

 

ETA: The dog we had when I was growing up slept with me every night for years and years, until one week when I was a freshman in high school, I went to camp. She never slept in my bed again. She'd come to my room and look at me when it was time for bed, but then kept walking. She was upset with me for leaving and I don't think she ever forgave me.

Edited July 9, 2012 by Mom in High Heels

[I.Dup.]

You guys have probably seen this, but I love

.

 

That is too funny! He looks like he is sobbing!

 

These stories are great. :)

[I.Dup.]

Our dog mopes around whenever ds is gone. He lays outside his bedroom door most of the day. When I come home from being out, he watches the front door, waiting for ds to follow me in. When I tell him, "I didn't bring your boy home yet.", he slinks off. He also spent several days missing, and looking for our older cat when he died recently. (Our younger cat did the same.)

 

When dh comes home, they have a ritual. Dh scratches Dingo's back as a greeting, then takes him outside. Even if Dingo just went out, he expects this to happen, and acts antsy if dh doesn't follow the routine.

 

We had a family dog that gave himself the job of taking care of my grandmother when she moved in with my mom. Her voice was weak, so she had a bell to call us with, but we didn't always hear it. The dog would let us know when she wanted something. At night he slept outside her bedroom door. We called it Granny Patrol, and at bedtime we'd tell him, "Time for Granny Patrol, Tuffy." He would immediately go lay outside her door.

 

A recent study indicates that dogs can understand human body language and eye contact as well as a six month old baby.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/dogs-follow-humans-gazes-infants-study/story?id=15291889

 

They understand us better than our closest animal relatives.*

 

*The article uses "could care less" instead of "couldn't care less". :tongue_smilie:

 

Thank you for the links!

[Impish]

Cassie is devoted to the kids. When one of them isn't home, she paces around, watching out windows...

 

And heaven forbid it's Diva that's out. Dog sulks until she comes home.

[Home'scool]

We used to have a dog that was perfectly healthy and quite agile, except at night when it was time to tell him that he had to go into the spare room where we required him to sleep. If we didn't put him in this room he would get into all sorts of mischief during the night.

 

He would make a HUGE deal about getting up, like he was so stiff from arthritis that he could hardly move, and then literally hobble over into the room. It was quite funny to see the dramatics.

 

One of my current dogs, a corgi, decides every now and then that his back leg hurts. He will hobble around on 3 legs. If we ignore the fact that he is hopping around and holding his paw up he miraculously is cured within a day. If we make a big deal about it and examine his paw and make baby noises over it he will literally go on for two weeks like this.

[ktgrok]

Read the book "Other End of the Leash". It is awesome, and gives GREAT insight into these things.

[Home'scool]

And I know this thread is about dogs, but I have a similiar story about my cat.

 

I keep my cat's food bowl up on a small table so the dogs won't get to it. They can't even reach the table because we have it blocked off with a cooler in front of it. It has been like that for about 2 years. A few weeks ago I noticed that it was knocked over to the ground and cat food was everywhere. I cleaned it all up and put it back the way it was. For the next 5 days in a row I would find it knocked over. I don't know what was making her mad, but she kept knocking her food bowl over.

 

Finally I just stopped picking it up and left the bowl and food like that for about 3 days. After that, I cleaned everything up and put it all back correctly.

 

She has not knocked it over since. Guess I won that battle of wills hahaha!

[swellmomma]

And I know this thread is about dogs' date=' but I have a similiar story about my cat.

 

I keep my cat's food bowl up on a small table so the dogs won't get to it. They can't even reach the table because we have it blocked off with a cooler in front of it. It has been like that for about 2 years. A few weeks ago I noticed that it was knocked over to the ground and cat food was everywhere. I cleaned it all up and put it back the way it was. For the next 5 days in a row I would find it knocked over. I don't know what was making her mad, but she kept knocking her food bowl over.

 

Finally I just stopped picking it up and left the bowl and food like that for about 3 days. After that, I cleaned everything up and put it all back correctly.

 

She has not knocked it over since. Guess I won that battle of wills hahaha![/quote']

 

That reminds me of the hijinks my cat gets up to with the dogs. I had the bag of dog food up on the kitchen table because I had not put it away in the backroom after feeding the dogs breakfast. A few times they jumped up trying to reach it. Suddenly I hear "thunk...and the sound of kibble pouring onto the floor". I turned around to see cat jumping down off the table and joining the dogs for a snack on the floor. He had jumped on the table and pushed the bag over, and I do not think it was necessarily an accident.

 

My old cat that we had to rehome you knew when she was happy and you knew when she wasn't mainly due to how vocal she was. She must have had some siamese in her because she "talked" all the time and the volume/tone would tell you what her mood was. She also had me totally whipped so she was mostly happy lol

[swellmomma]

Cassie is devoted to the kids. When one of them isn't home, she paces around, watching out windows...

 

And heaven forbid it's Diva that's out. Dog sulks until she comes home.

 

At least you will have a silent alarm letting you know if she is past curfew or sneaking out lol

[mom4him]

Well with all of these dog threads, I wanted to ask about something I am curious about. We own our first dog in many years, he is now 7 months old. I am really curious just how much dogs really can feel, emotionally. So can you share with me examples of when you know your dog has felt emotional about something (love, sadness, hurt, rejected, etc)?

 

For us the most prominent time was 2 summers ago when our whole family was gone for most of 2 1/2 months. Our son and his family was here so the dogs were being fed/watered and such but it wasn't THEIR family(the dogs). Our oldest dog(Australian Shep.) is normally a very gentle mild dog. She got out of the yard(she is also miss Houdini). Our neighbor who the dog if very familial with went to bring her out from under their picnic table and our AS went goofy on her, growling, snapping, made! The neighbor backed off and our AS went home on her own. Our blond labradoodle is a very friendly dog, loves people, any people, every person, especially if they will tough him. He would not let me get close to him for like 8 months after we got home. He would not look at me, he would NOT let me touch him. A couple of times I forced him to let me pet him but he was not happy and went away scowling. He is pretty much back to normal but there are times, when I am gone for the day he seems hesitant to get close to me.

 

When we had our schnauzers our oldest would become very depress if she want to long without being groomed. We had them on an every 6 wk schedule but once in a while they would go 8 or 9 wks. She would mope around, hanging her head, very low energy, sad looking when she would look at you, etc. As soon as she was groomed she was happy, jumpy, etc. I used to laugh at her and tell her she was very vain.:lol:

 

Once you really get to know your dog you see begin to recognize some of their emotions.:001_smile:

[Halftime Hope]

We have a tiny dog (J) and a bit older small dog (G) who was in the family before J. J puts up with G's bossiness all the time, but he is also tricky and enjoys putting one over on her.

 

We've gotten wise to it, but he will go to the back door and bark to be let out. She'll come running, and then when we open the door, he'll duck back in so that she's out there by herself, so he can go and eat by himself. It's a passive aggressive thing, because there is food there all the time and she has never, ever given him grief about his butting right in and eating when she is already at the bowl.

 

Funny behavior!

[Jeannie in NJ]

when I was in college in Texas I lived with my aunt. SHe had 2 poodles Missy and Bear. Bear decided that she was my dog. When I wanted her, instead of calling her, I would slap my hand twice on my right leg and she would come running to me. After college I moved to California for 5 years. When I came back to Texas I went to spend 2 weeks with my aunt. As I drove up to her house, her and the 2 dogs were waiting. I got out of the car and slapped my leg with my hand and Bear came racing to me and jumped in my arms, licking my face like crazy. SHe did not leave my side for the entire 2 weeks. It was a great feeling to be that loved. ANd for her to remember me after 5 years.

[WistfulRidge]

One of my best friends is currently dog-sitting her sister's boxer. Canyon is about 7 years old and his "real family" includes 3 small children under the age of 4. He loves children. Adores them. So after he had been staying my (childless) friend for a week it became obvious that he was getting quite depressed over the whole "no babies" situation. So she brought him to visit. Oh my, I have never seen a dog so happy before. He walked in the door kind of mopey and then you could just tell the second he spotted my boys because he went absolutely still for a second, his ears perked up, and then he started wagging his butt so hard that he almost knocked himself over.

 

This is a picture from about ten minutes later. DS2 is looking a little worried because this is the first time that he had seen a puppy this big, and also because Canyon just couldn't get close enough to him. Every time DS2 would try and move Canyon would move too. It was like he had to be touching him.

 

We're currently looking forward to another Canyon visit this upcoming Sunday. He has visited enough times now that both of my boys greet him with hugs and kisses and comply with his need to be touched by small children by snuggling with him and playing next to him for the visit. Canyon has visited enough now that if my friend picks up his leash and asks him "Do you want to go see Jessica and the babies?" he turns into a deliriously happy, wiggling mess.

[I talk to the trees]

Not exactly a story about dog emotions, but the female sheltie we had when we got married was smarter than any dog I have ever known. When our male had a toy that she wanted, she'd try to take it from him. He'd usually respond with a lip curl or low growl. She figured out that she could take another toy from the toy basket, "play" with it for a minute, then drop it within his reach. He'd go for the "new" toy, and she'd get the one she wanted all along. :lol:

[mama2cntrykids]

I love to see how happy our Cocker gets when the kids are outside playing and he's romping around with them. He's just SO HAPPY. He's an old dog too, so it's all the sweetier!

[Lolosoli]

I think dogs are like people...they show emotion differently. Some breeds of dogs and some relationships with their owners are different! Ours is a Border Collie/Lab mix and he is a very attached dog (in a healthy way) and he is constantly communicating his feelings with us and evaluating how we feel as well.

 

For example:

 

Our dog pretty much goes everywhere with us. We are "attachment parenting dog owners"!! LOL

 

Well, when we are getting ready to leave the house we don't want to tell him if he is coming or not to soon because he'll either become excited or become very sad. We try to wait until it is almost time to go. So, he will walk around and try to get us to make eye contact with him. If we look at him he raises his eyebrows and then sits and wags his tag, pleaded to know what is going on.

 

Then, If we say, "You aren't coming, you are staying here"...he will stop wagging his tail, lower his head, walk over to the couch and then lay down with a big, sad, deep sigh. If we say, "You are coming with us" ...he will jump up and down and run to the door!!!

 

He has learned driving directions to different places (our shop/acreage we go to, the beach, a friends forest, etc) and he will show different forms of excitement once he begins to know where we are going. As soon as we hit the four corner stop to our friends forest he knows where we are almost at and begins to get very happy. It makes us feel sad when we are going in those directions but not making a stop at one of his favourite places!!! LOL

 

I think dogs are very, very emotional creatures!

[Lady Florida.]

He has learned driving directions to different places (our shop/acreage we go to, the beach, a friends forest, etc) and he will show different forms of excitement once he begins to know where we are going.

 

One of the family dogs we had would sometimes go with me to pick up my brother from middle school on days when he didn't walk home. She loved to go, knew what I meant when I said we were going to get him, and would start to get very excited when I made the final turn on the school's street.

[mom2jjka]

Our dog is (mostly) puppy pad trained. Sometimes he will be naughty and go on the floor a few feet away from the pad, though.

 

I can always tell which he has done, because immediately after he goes - he will run to me.

If he is excited, looking me in the eye, wagging his tail - I'll know he's been a good boy. But if comes to me and his head is hanging low, looking up at me with sad eyes, and has his tail tucked between his legs - I know I have a mess to deal with. :glare: