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Animal behaviorists have always been fascinated about studying whether or not dogs and other animals have emotions. While some researchers conduct ongoing studies to find scientific evidence, regular folks like you and I could answer that question immediately with a resounding "Yes!"

Having been around dogs and other animals all of my life I can tell you that these lovable companions have emotions just like you and I. All you have to do is look at them, watch them, and listen. Watch their faces change expression and their tail and body showing signs of communication in connection with people and other animals. Common sense can clearly show that what a dog displays on the outside tells an enormous amount of information of what's going on inside.

Most animal behaviorists start their research with the thought of what it would be like to be a dog. Skepticism is the initial drive which these men and women spark their research with. They wonder if dogs and other animals actually "feel" anything inside. As you can probably guess, since you cannot place an emotion under a microscope, most scientists dismiss the idea.

However, as time goes on, more and more people are becoming less skeptical about the idea of dogs and other animals having emotions. For example, there are scientific journals that are considered prestigious publications who have reported such findings as rats experiencing joy, mice that have empathy, and elephants which feel grief. Now with this information is clearly founded that yes, your dog and mine, has emotions.

Now the big question is, why? Why have emotions evolved in certain species as adaptation tools to their environment? The answer could be in the possibility that these emotions have evolved to become somewhat of a "social sticky" which glues the bond between animals and each other for a variety of social reasons.

Interesting Examples

We know that emotions allow animals to be flexible and adaptable to there behavior through a variety of venues. An interesting study has reported that mice are empathetic, yet they're also fun loving. Other reports show that iguanas seek pleasure, baboons become angry, and elephants - surprisingly enough - have flashbacks and post traumatic stress disorder. That's not all, we have reports that fish are sentient and that otters show affection as well as grief.

Many researchers also concluded that animals which are living as companions to humans, especially dogs, can develop specific emotions due to our relationship with them. There are quite a few common emotional traits that are shared by both dogs and people alike.

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We can try to mimic sounds or tones to help convey our intent like they do, but again who knows if they get our exact meaning....

Making them avoid things proves nothing....just they want to avoid something they don't like....

That leaves only one thing touch....it is clear dogs understand touch very well.....whether it be rewarding or not....they get the message very clear....Thanks for joining in everyone!~

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Daisy charmed herself to a New York City family on vacation at a lake approximately thirty miles from the city. The family befriended her and gave her all of the food and love she demanded. After a short time, Daisy delivered four healthy puppies, which also received the love and care of the adopted family.

When the summer ended and the human family had to return to their home in New York, they gave Daisy and her puppies to a permanent resident neighbor. They felt that Daisy and her puppies would be happier in the freedom and space that the country offers, rather than their Manhattan apartment.

About three weeks after their return to the city, they heard a scratching at the apartment door. When they opened it, there was Daisy, carrying one of the puppies in her mouth. It was a happy reunion and nothing was too good for Daisy and her puppy.

The next day, Daisy was gone. The family scoured the neighborhood but with no success of finding Daisy. About five days later, Daisy came back with another puppy. This went on until she had her four puppies under the roof of her human family.

How in the world was she able to find her human family in an apartment she had never seen, in a city the size of New York? Nobody has a clue, and ESP would seem to be the only answer.

There are many, many more similar stories that are documented, including the one about the famous Shepherd named Prince. During World War I, Prince swam the English Channel to find his owner in one of the thousands of trenches in France. This story became very famous and received international acclaim.

There are also stories on record of dogs being able to sense their own danger. One such case involves an old hunting dog named Flash. Whenever Flash's owner picked up the shotgun, Flash was out of the door and into the field before the gun was loaded. But the sad day came when the dog, old and decrepit, was to be "put out of his misery." This time when the gun was picked up the dog disappeared under the house and was found in the farthest corner trembling with fear and unresponsive to commands or coaxing.

Another case involves a German Shepherd and his owner. The man took off in his private plane from an airport in Georgia to fly to New England and left his dog at home with his parents. Flying over Pennsylvania, the plane crashed. The dog's owner was found by a farmer. He was alive but unconscious and taken to the hospital where he regained consciousness about twelve hours later.

Back home in Georgia, at the time of the crash, the dog disappeared under the house. With the flashlight he could be seen lying motionless and dazed and was unresponsive to commands or water or food. He remained in this state the whole time his owner was unconscious. When his owner regained consciousness, the dog came out from under the house, ate, and appeared perfectly normal.

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ESP studies show that successful telepathy is dependent on the temperament of both the sender and receiver and that it is sometimes present and sometimes absent. In other words, people and animals might make astoundingly high scores for a given period and then suddenly lose the capacity completely. Most important, ESP depends on a close emotional tie between the subjects.

A good example is the case of Casey, a Pennsylvania family dog. The three children in the family were Boy Scouts who loved to camp out on weekends. One night, the mother and father had driven the boys to set-up their favorite campsite about twenty miles from home. When the boys were settled, mom and dad drove back home and retired for the night.

They were asleep only for about two hours when Casey broke their slumber with a strange howling. It was so persistent and strange that they realized something might be wrong with the boys. They quickly dressed and started to drive to the campsite. About five miles where they had left the boys, there was a red glow in the sky. As they drove closer, they recognized it was a forest fire. They were driving to the campsite from the south while the fire was traveling from north to south. They got to the boys and evacuated them just in time.

In the story of a family dog in Virginia named Harry, he knew something was wrong with his family but had only his veterinarian to tell it to. The vet was taking care of the dog while the family was vacationing in Florida. Harry's howl was so weird and agonizing that the vet made a note of the date and time. When Harry's family returned and picked him up, the vet told them about the dog's strange behavior. The family was astounded. On the specified date, at the recorded time, they had been marooned in a flash flood.

Many of us have heard of a story about the actions of a dog at the death of his owner. One of the most famous has to do with Gary Cooper's three dogs. As his death approached, the dogs were on guard with a group of reporters outside the bedroom. It was precisely recorded that at the exact time Gary Cooper passed away, all three dogs began to howl and were devastated for quite some time.

Another story tells of a woman who returned to her family home after being away for five years. During this time, her mother had died. The woman went to the cemetery to visit her mother's grave and brought along her small terrier, Tippy. At the cemetery, Tippy leaped out of the car and ran around in circles whining.

The woman went to get water for a vase of flowers. When she found the grave, Tippy was lying on top of it moaning in a strangest way. Tippy had never been to the graveyard and none of the other members of the family had been there in over a year.

Science has yet to discover exactly what makes ESP works, but there is no question of its existence. If you and your pet have it, you are blessed with the greatest compliment an animal can bestow.

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Last year, Angela, a single mother of three teenage boys, had been in contact with the Greyhound Pets of America (a rescue group that finds homes for retired racing greyhounds). She asked the group if they had an adult dog that would get along well with cats, as Angela also loved cats and had several of them.

A lovely greyhound named Bronze fit the bill. Just several days later Bronze was welcomed with loving arms in his new home.

Bronze didn't know a lot of small things right away, such as how to climb up steps or comprehend a see-through glass door and windows, etc. He did not know how to play and was very weary of people, particularly very tall, thin males. And something also peculiar - he was literally afraid of his own shadow!

Any of these things caused fear in Bronze, and the resulting behavior was aggression, snarling and growling. Angelica was worried that his behavior would go beyond this reaction, leading into biting or attacking.

Soon Bronze showed fear towards another specific occurrence: Anytime Angela's brother would come to visit, and wearing his usual leather jacket and ball cap, Bronze would again start his aggressive stance and snarling. The same thing happened when Angela's sons would come home with their noisy friends.

The Cause Of Bronze's Fear

As you know, Bronze was an ex-race dog, so once Angela was able to contact a canine psychologist, the doctor was able to identify the problem right away. He had asked Angela to obtain a picture of the dog's ex-trainer, which turned out to be a very tall, skinny man that wore a long black coat, along with a specific hat that resembled a baseball cap.

Add to this evidence the obvious experiences of the dog having raced at the track: lots of noisy people, confinement, guns firing, running, more confinement, lots of harsh training commands from his trainer - it was no wonder why Bronze reacted the way he did when he was adopted.

Managing these issues was not going to be an easy task. It required Angela to have constant vigilance. The doctor instructed her to remove the noisy teenagers from his presence, teaching Angela to be cautious of how she gave commands to Bronze, as well as have her brother remove his black leather jacket and ball cap when visiting.

In time, Bronze was able to calm down and within 12 months was less afraid of noise and the appearance of any man that resembled his past trainer became less of a threat. Bronze lived to be thirteen years old and because of his new owner's love and care to learn to communicate, he was a lucky dog - one that enjoyed the right that every canine has - to be loved and included in a real family.

What You Can Learn From This Story

If you are also considering bringing home an adult dog that has had a history of competing in sports, such as a racing dog, for example, then prepare yourself by taking lessons from the above story. It will not only teach you how to communicate with your problem dog, but could also save him or her from being sentenced to a lonely life inside of the pound.

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It could very well be ESP (extrasensory perception) and it most certainly a grand devotion because, in order for this phenomenon to work, ESP requires a strong bond of love between humans and their pets.

Since ESP is completely extrasensory, which means it cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or felt, how can we presume to attribute such non-physical powers to our seemingly purely physical pets?

We can, thanks to the painstaking research of Dr. Rhine and his team at the Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory in North Carolina. After well establishing the ESP ability in humans, the doctor and his team set out to determine if the same phenomenon existed in animals. Similar research was also carried out in Russia by two eminent scientists, Bkhterev and Durov.

Since the introductory research with animals, Dr. Rhine's laboratory has been flooded with letters reporting ESP in pets, first and mainly with dogs, and then with cats. But almost every domesticated species had a spot in Dr. Rhine's collection. Each case is meticulously investigated to determine its authenticity. "Homing" studies (referred to as "psi-training" by Dr. Rhine) are the most common, but stories involving other forms of ESP are also documented in evidence.

One of the most popular cases involves a Collie named Bob. His "homing" feat gained him headlines from all over the world, lots of fan mail, and even a motion picture. Bob's adventure started out as a vacation motor trip from Oregon to the East Coast. On the way back to Oregon, Bob's family realized that their beloved pet was missing.

After an unsuccessful search for Bob, the heartbroken family drove back to Oregon - approximately 2,500 miles. Bob's most charming trick was holding up his right front paw when he was hungry. Four months later, he presented himself at the door of his home in Oregon - paw outstretched.

Another inspiring case is that of a mixed-breed dog named Henry. Henry was left with friends in Illinois when his family moved to Michigan. Six weeks later, Henry excitedly greeted his family on a street corner of their new town in Michigan.

The dog made it perfectly clear that he was looking at his family, and the stunned family was convinced that the dog was their beloved dog Henry. But was the dog really Henry? The collar was familiar. The Illinois family, with whom Henry had been left, drove to Michigan to satisfy their doubts. Dr. Rhine and his staff from Duke University flew to Michigan to verify the story. Everyone agreed that the dog was indeed Henry.

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Your dog has the ability to tell you exactly how he feels - whether he is happy, sad, bored, excited, disgusted, puzzled, confident, uneasy or frightened.

The inconspicuous and almost continuous movements of his eyes, ears, body and tail are his emotional body language and his primary means of communication. Researchers are finding that, rather than being limited in their means of expression, animals are attuned to an extremely subtle and refined system of communication.

The wild dogs of Africa studied by Jane Goodall and wolves observed by Dr. Michael W. Fox, recognized authority on canine body language, communicated to each other a wide range of attitudes, including anger, dominance, submission, joy, interest, disgust, dismay, affection and fear - using only the slightest body movements.

Though domesticated dogs have lost some sensitivity to this language in their dealings with humans, they still use most of these instinctive, inherited forms of communication. With practice, a sensitive observer with a keen eye can learn to read his dog's body language.

As he becomes more skilled at identifying subtle changes of mood in his pet, his communication and companionship with him will grow deeper and more pleasurable.

Veterinarians with long experience often read canine body language well, noticing the smallest nuances. Dr. Theodore Stanton, a veterinarian who has practiced now for more than forty years, has become an expert at it. He frequently acts as interpreter for his patients when their owners bring them in for treatment and ask him why their dog is doing certain peculiar things.

"Among Dogs, as among most animals, a hierarchy exists in every group," says Dr. Stanton.

He goes on to say, "From the most dominant 'top dog' to the lowest 'under dog,' each dog works out with each other in the group which of them will be dominant and which will be submissive. Much of a dog's body language is used in the context of establishing these dominant-submissive relationships with other dogs and also with people."

A dog uses every part of his body in some way to express his feelings and intentions. The appendage he uses most conspicuously and expressively is his tail.

"You can tell everything by a dog's tail," explains Mr. Stanton, "He holds it up when he is alert and expecting something. If he has met a strange dog or heard an unusual sound, it quivers a little. He is saying, 'I'm ready for danger; I'm ready for anything!"

The Doctor finishes with, "A tail held very high - almost vertically - or arched over his back says he feels aggressive and dominant, and intends to do something about it if necessary. The dog with his tail tucked tightly between his hind legs is saying, 'I'm scared, and I'm getting out of here!'"

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