Thread: "Humanizing" Our Pets

Animals behavior is a factor of their evolution. They are not sapient so don't take the same level of control over their thoughts or environment as we do, nor do they see things the way we do.

Now to say you can associate particular emotions like fear, love, anger, etc with an animal is true in that their responses are the same as what we would associate with those emotions. On the other hand doing human things and expecting an animal to react in a human way or placing human characteristics and drives on an animal is wrong. In some cases it has minimal impact but in others it can be detrimental to the animal's well being or even worse a danger to you when the animal responds in ways you don't expect.

Dogs are a perfect example. So many of them are treated in ways that their owners think is best for them because they are their "little babies" when in reality it is raising the animals stress levels and not providing a stable environment for them to live in.

I guess the short version is animals do have emotions and do form attachments/relationships but you have to deal with them on their terms as a [insert animal species here] and not a human.