Have you ever wondered what your dog is feeling? I have wondered this when I’m playing with my dog. Is she happy? Does she feel guilty when she chews up our shoes? In the past, it has been hard and even impossible to really know what they feel and what is going on inside their brains. With new technology, we have been better able to understand.

“Eat without pleasure, cry without pain, act without knowing it: they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing.” This quote came from Nicholas de Malebranche, who along with René Descartes, believed that animals simply acted like a machine. These French philosophers from the distant past had a very interesting interpretation of animals’ lives. They believed that animals, including dogs, had no ability to experience feelings, and could be programmed to do things, much like a machine. Today we have a different view on what goes on inside dog’s brains.

In the present, scientists have been able to study in depth what the mind of a dog is like. We have found that dogs have all the same brain structures that produce emotions in humans. Their brain contains the hormone oxytocin which in humans involves the feelings love and affection. Gregory Berns a professor of neuroeconomics at Emory University found the caudate nucleus, which causes anticipation of things we enjoy, has similar structure in both dog and human brains. The mind of a dog is roughly the same as a human’s at age two. Their developmental stage is a lot faster and they have full emotion range by 4-6 months.

Dogs will have all of our basic emotions; joy, fear, anger, disgust, and love. They won’t have complex emotions, such as guilt, pride, shame. Some people believe that their dog shows guilt, such as when they do something wrong. In reality, the dog is anxiously anticipating, or fearing, an expected punishment. Researcher Patricia Simonet from Sierra Nevada College has discovered what could be considered the canine version of laughter. Certain breathing while playing had a different pattern from normal panting.

In conclusion, dogs do have emotions, they aren’t just machines. We do know that they aren’t capable of complex emotions, only basic ones. Why are they not capable of complex emotions? What makes their brain different than ours? How can we learn even more about their minds? Most dogs in the world are pets, and are part of family. They feel joy when they play with their owners or fellow dogs, and they can fear punishment when they know they did something wrong. Dogs aren’t humans, but they can love you like one.