Jan 07 2009
Do Pets Perceive Love?
I finally discovered for myself how comforting it is to have a pet fall asleep in my lap.
What a strange sensation it is to feel responsible for this little creature for the remainder of it’s life. Not unlike what we feel for a child, although I acknowledge that there is a difference.
In our later years a pet often takes the place of a child in our lives. And we LOVE these little critters; they are part of God’s kingdoms. I know what I feel for our new little puppy, sometimes sleeping quietly and sometimes fitfully, in my lap. Occasionally she gets the hiccups, which I quickly cure by applying pressure to each side of each of her thoracic vertebra, a technique that works equally well with humans, by the way.
So in my silent reverie I wonder what she feels. Does she have any “emotional body” equivalent to our human dimension? Does she feel love or affection for me and my wife in the same way that a human might?
We assign words like “loyalty” to her behavior, but does she feel any sense of what we equate to loyalty in human terms? I sometimes think “yes” and sometimes think “no.” Most of all, though, I think it doesn’t really matter. I think she just feels “safe” and “provided for” (human terms again) and that is enough.
The feelings she generates within me and within my wife are all that really matters. What we give to her in terms of human emotional love is really what we perceive that we receive in return…and it is bountiful and Good.
CheyAnna is pictured here at age 6 months, 26 pounds and 15 inches tall. She is called a Dalton Terrier, a cross between a Dalmation and a Boston Terrier (plus there is a little something else in there that makes her unique).
