Man's Best Friend

Today in class, we talked about how animals may or may not have emotions. In Mary Midgley's book, it says that a dog can get excited when its master comes home, but doesn't know if the same will happen the next day. I can personally relate to this statement. I have a 9 year old dog at home (Maggie) and she loves my dad. There is not one time where she doesn't freak out when he gets home from being out somewhere. The way that this relates to the statement in our book is that, when my dad goes out of town and doesn't come home for a couple of days, my dog gets very depressed. She normally sleeps in the bed and she will sleep on the stairs all night. She won't eat and rarely gets up from sleeping. If this isn't an animal with emotions then I don't know what is. There is no way that my dog doesn't have emotions with the actions she displays when my dad leaves. Even though she can't verbally tell how she is feeling, her actions tell the whole story. In class we also talked about how if you can't speak then you don't have emotions. So I could put my dog in the same group with babies, mute people, and others who cannot speak. This concept does not make sense to me. I love animals, but there is no way I would classify my dog in the same grouping as a baby. Even though these beings can't speak, does not mean that they have no emotions. I think that actions speak louder than words at some points and this is why I believe animals can have emotions.