[davidlrf]

I heard recently that animals don't feel love. I think people that believe that have a reason for wanting to treat animals badly.

[yellowleaf]

I think that animals feel love.

[DP_2017]

Many people say that... and some animals might not, who knows?? I do believe that some do. I believe dogs do.

[downandlonely]

I think they do. My cat seems to enjoy my company and cuddling with me.

[seeker33]

Only people who are not capable of feeling love can say something like that.

[Calla lily12]

Originally Posted by davidlrf

I heard recently that animals don't feel love. I think people that believe that have a reason for wanting to treat animals badly.

I agree. It's an excuse. Of course animals feel love, maybe more than humans.

[BDPpartner]

My furbabies definitely feel love

We have a rescue Grandma and Grandbaby, we were told that unfortunately due to neglect only one puppy of the litter survived and that was because Grandma stepped in to take care of her. We have had them several years and every single night Grandma baths her Grandbaby they are so cute together, from the moment we saw them we knew that they couldn't be separated.

And that's not mentioning the love they show us

[Agent Misty]

The only people who say animals don't feel love are people who haven't been loved by an animal.

Animals can feel love, for example my since-departed black cats, Ebony and Tom, wouldn't leave each other's side and when Tom had to be put to sleep at the vet

Possible trigger:

(severe spinal damage - basically his spine over time had been crushing itself and nobody knew until too late )

, poor Ebony pined and never recovered from losing him, Ebony passed away at the vet earlier this year

Do you remember the term 'lab rat'?

Would rats have been able to go through psychological experiments (which were supposed to be similar to human experiments) if they did not have any emotions? Rats too get addicted, just like humans, due to the reward system (which is controlled by dopamine) and they are under the class mammalia.


Dogs and cats also belong to the class mammalia. So yes, basically, animals feel emotions too. That's considering we're talking about commonly spotted animals like tigers and lions and of course dogs and cats.

If you're still with me, here's the more scientific jargon.

1) Basically, people used to have a lot of assumptions (mostly because of religious texts and common, ignorant sayings and beliefs) back then. An example of that is Carolus Linnaeus' own "system of classification," He wrote two books in Latin describing a very large amount of both plant and animal species, but failed to understand there are microscopic as well as macroscopic organisms which do not fall under his two-kingdom classification. Basically, people at that time thought all organisms are either plants or animals, similar to ancient Greeks.


2) Fast forward to 1960's and we have a brilliant taxonomist named R.H Whittaker create the currently-accepted Five Kingdom Classification system. Now due to insight, we know that there are many organisms which aren't strictly plants or animals, but includes every form of life (excepting viruses and viroids) ranging from sponges to the complicated human beings. We studied life forms and found out that starting from arachaebacteria (the most primitive form of prokaryotic life) to us Homo sapiens sapiens, there are deviations in cellular structure and thus complexity. Whittaker considered phylogenetic relationship while creating the five kingdom system of classification.

3) All animals under the phylum chordata have a backbone. Which means a pretty complicated nervous system (as opposed to no nervous system at all) Dogs and cats belong to the class Mammalia and Mammalia is supposed to be the most genetically evolved class. So mammals have their own brain, their own nerves, their own spinal cords. In fact, they even nurture their young ones. In scientific language, female breasts of humans are said to be mammillary glands.

4) Dogs and cats are pretty evolved in a nutshell. So yes, they have emotions. I'd hate to see one being beaten to death by a sadistic person. All mammals (all our pets and common, non-vector animals around us, like horses and rats) are pretty evolved, are capable of feeling love and deserve to be loved.

[WayOffTrack]

Anybody that believes animals don't feel love is ignorant. Either sincerely ignorant or they're choosing to believe that despite all the evidence. Yes animals feel love. By the way, humans are animals. The main difference between man and other creatures is ego. Ego is our problem.

[avlady]

Well I know Don Knotts as a fish felt love!!!hahaha But really i know the devotion and loyalty of my beagle and other animals Ive had felt love just by the look in their eyes. Losing them was worse than losing some people i knew.Not to be mean, but i grieved over animals more than some humans.

[Calla lily12]

I personally believe that animals are on a higher plane and therefore much more "pure" than humans. They most certainly feel everything we do and possibly more.

Anyone who has ever spent time with animals knows that they love. They love more purely than humans do.

I had 2 cats. When one died suddenly, the other went around the house mewing in agony for a while. It was clear grief. Where there is grief, there is love.

They do feel love, I actually think that animals sometimes show more love than humans.

[Korat]

Originally Posted by avlady

Well I know Don Knotts as a fish felt love!!!hahaha But really i know the devotion and loyalty of my beagle and other animals Ive had felt love just by the look in their eyes. Losing them was worse than losing some people i knew.Not to be mean, but i grieved over animals more than some humans.

Not mean at all. I’ve definitely grieved for animals more than people. Animals have only hurt me when they’ve been scared. People have hurt me for no reason at all.

[Korat]

Exactly! We don’t have emotional support cans of soup or emotional support bricks. We have emotional support animals, because animals are emotional beings capable of interpreting and responding to emotions.

I have five cats and a dog. All are loving, but two of the cats are so attuned to me that I think they often recognize my moods before I can identify them. One gets in my lap or follows me around when I’m anxious; the other does the same thing when I’m depressed. If I’m in a mixed mood, they’re both all over me. They understand love more than many people do.

[rise13eyond]

Such BS. And you'd know that if you spent 5 minutes around a dog. No one can love you like a pet. I read that cat's brains have the same part of the brain that regulates emotions as humans do. So if you want to claim that cat's don't feel or love you better admit that neither do humans.

Originally Posted by rise13eyond

Such BS. And you'd know that if you spent 5 minutes around a dog. No one can love you like a pet. I read that cat's brains have the same part of the brain that regulates emotions as humans do. So if you want to claim that cat's don't feel or love you better admit that neither do humans.

Well I do not know much about neuroanatomy but all the commonly spotted domestic animals do feel love just as humans do...