Animals and emotions. On death and nature.

Rose and Frieda. Two working girls get closer

For months, I thought Frieda and Rose might kill each other. Two strong willed dominant creatures did not get along. Lately, they seem to have bonded in some way I don’t understand. They are often together now. Frieda is now often out in the yard with the other dogs, which she loves. I see that she and Rose are similiar in many ways, and are increasingly comfortable around one another.

For the past day or two, there has been a fascinating thread running on my Facebook page – more than 100 comments in one day – in response to a question about whether dogs are aware of their own deaths. I love writing about dogs and other animals, one of the better moves in my life, but it does sometimes put me at odds with the intensifying – sometimes it seems explosive – emotionalizing of dogs and other animals. Because people love them so much, they increasingly seeing them as human-like, and in possession of human type emotions – spite, anger, calculation – and of human awareness of things like death and guilt.

Plato write that the thing that most separated humans from animals was a conscience. We desire to be better, and we change our lives, even if not always successfully. Dogs and cats and other animals do not, in my mind, possess human emotions, language or consciousness. They have their own, and while we understand little about that, people I respect believe that animals think in visual imagery, certainly not in our vocabulary or language or narrative, which they do no possess. This idea – that dogs and cats are different from us – is getting lost in the rush to turn them into children, spiritual beings, therapists, healers and mystics. It’s a lot to put on creatures who are basically simple.

Seeing dogs as people is not good for them. It makes training impossible, and puts so much pressure on them – hundreds of thousands of dogs in America are now in anti-depressants for issues like “separation anxiety” – that behavioral problems are the leading cause of death for dogs, along with overfeeding. When you treat a dog like a small human, you will see all sorts of issues often cropping up. And the dogs often pay with their lives. The emotionalizing of dogs is a far more destructive form of abuse than neglect – it kills many more dogs. People who attribute human foibles, motives and ideas to dogs are not doing animals any favor. Far from it. In my own case I try and separate what I need from what is good for them. And there is a big difference, although I sometimes stumble over the line.

So no, I think dogs have many instincts which affect their behavior when they are sick or dying. But there is no evidence I know of to suggest that dogs have a literal consciousness about life or death. Everybody seems to have a story or two about dogs mourning and grieving. I have never seen it. Tragedies like the Katrina disaster teach us yet again that dogs are adaptable. They can and do adapt and move on. They are not like us. And good for them.