Canine morality? What about the humans?

On the one hand I am sympathetic to researchers who see echoes of morality in the way dogs play.

I also see how much projection takes place among so many dog owners who believe Fido feels every emotion in the same way that they do.  A few even project their religious preferences on their dogs.

Two humans will often disagree on both how to think about morality and how they feel in response to a set of events, and we are the same species.  I'll grant dogs, and many other mammals, a wide variety of emotions but they must be, to a varying degree of extent, alien to our own. 

Yet, if we keep all this in mind I still remember the day we brought home Maybelle and our coon hound at the time, Zeke, saw the new puppy he looked at us, looked at the puppy, looked at us and then promptly raised his leg and peed in the middle of the living room floor.







I never knew he cared.

Still, more harm is done treating our animals as if they interacted with the world in the same way we do than in adhering to basic principles of operant conditioning and remembering that however our dogs interact with the world, we have the larger frontal lobes and are responsible for greater insight. 

The degree to which canines experience emotion in the same way we do is an interesting academic problem.  Some will feel the need to integrate this knowledge into their choices what meat, if any, to eat.

But the real threat to pets is over-indulgence and short-term thinking on the part of their humans.

Yes, your dog will beg for food but that is not necessarily because he needs to eat.  Obesity is a problem not only for about one-third of America's human population but one-fourth of American dogs as well.  That is the result of the actions of human beings and it decreases the quality of life for animals who can not be expected to exercise self-control in relationship to their diet. 

Dogs probably experience emotions.  They may have something akin to a morality but I know humans do and therein are the problems we should really be addressing. 

People do not like to be told that they are killing their pet slowly, and feeling good about themselves while doing it, through over-feeding.  They like to be told that Fido loves them in the same way that they feel love.  They like to think of their dogs going to heaven, though it is hard to find evidence that the God of Jacob and Jesus cares nearly as much for them as the modern American.

But then again we do a lot of projecting of ourselves when it comes to the divine as well, don't we?