How Do You Know Your Dog Loves You?

[RedRobin]

They readily make eye contact

Eye contact is often the first things learned in basic obedience classes because it helps dogs focus. In the world at large, eye contact can be seen as a challenge, but in loving relationships, it’s a sign of trust and love. Eye contact isn’t just a sign of a strong bond between a dog and her person, it’s also a way to create and improve that bond.

They check in on walks and in new environments

Dogs who are bonded to their people tend to look at them a lot. They might still tug like crazy on the leash if they spot a pigeon, but they’ll return to you when it flies away. Even the most adventurous, independent dogs typically show their connection by “checking in” from time to time. If your dog makes regular, visual contact with you in new environments, it means your bond is strong.

They freak out when you get home

If your dog freaks out when you get home it means they’re excited to see you! And chances are, you’re just as happy to see them. A happy, noisy, tail-waggy greeting is one of the surest signs you and your dog are connected.

Their body language is calm and relaxed in your presence

I know, I just said that if your dog is super-excited to see you, it means they’re in love! However, a bonded dog is also a comfortable dog. After the initial burst of excitement at your arrival, a bonded dog usually settles down.

These are the most common types of relaxed body language in your dog:

- A slightly open mouth, with a relaxed, lolling tongue
- Rolling over for a belly rub (this shows they trust you)
- Soft, relaxed facial expression
- Blinking eyes
- Tail wagging side to side
- A “bow” to invite and encourage play

A dog with relaxed body language that lays down and takes a nap by your side is showing you how much they trust you (and how much they like being close to you, another sign of a strong bond).

They carry your shoes around in their mouth

Dogs who are attached to their owners are also very attached to their scent and may snuggle up with their belongings. Think of it from a dog’s perspective: scent is one of their primary means of communication, and your belongings communicate home, attachment, and love.

They listen when you speak and come when you call

Responsiveness is one of the biggest signs that you and your dog have formed a strong bond. If your dog listens to you when you speak, and obeys the commands you give, it shows that they’re attached to you. Basic obedience training is a great way to strengthen your bond.

They seek physical affection

Physical contact is among the most important bonding activity you can engage in with your dog. If your dog seeks out pets, leans, snuggles, and hugs, it’s a sure sign they’re bonded to you. And you can strengthen your bond by spending quality, one-on-one time with your dog every day.

[Anonymous]

When i get really sick both mentally or physically he knows before i do and won't let me be by myself and gets anxiety when im not present at these times. Also needs to share scent by sleeping in my shoes and rubbing himself all over my stuff and my legs if i have the audacity to bath/shower

[LegateLanius]

That was so cute. Thank you.

[Kenni]

You just feel it.
When you're the one person your pet goes to all the time.
You just feel the connection.

[Secretgardenblood]

Good take

[Fitness-Fanatic]

Aww I love this take. It's so true. My dog shows love in these ways.

[nightdrot]

While I do not mean to be the wet blanket here, the truth is that your dog - or any pet for that matter - cannot love you. The list of behaviors you point to is indicative of an instinctive pack relationship, but not love as that term is properly understood.

Love, classically defined, means "willing the good of the other as the other." Put another way it is a conscious choice to prefer the well being of another simply for the fact of who they are and perhaps even at the expense of one's own health, safety and sense of security.

A dog cannot do that. Dogs do not exhibit a capacity for conscious choice - that is a capacity to distinguish good from evil and to prefer the former to the latter. Dogs rather operate on the basis of instinct and evolutionary behavior.

That behavior has its basis in an interdependence that evolved between dog's ancestors and man's. For the dog, man was a source of food. For man, a means of assuring security against predators.

Dogs, in this connection, learned to respond to human behaviors and to adapt their own behaviors in order to assure and reinforce the interdependence of the two species. In that light, the behaviors you listed are rooted in evolutionary developments, not conscious choice.

What you are doing then what humans do, i. e., attributing human behaviors and motivations to an animal that does not share those motivations. Indeed, could not.

Still, that need not mean that you like your dog any less, nor that you should take less pleasure from your pet. Your dog is acting instinctively and his instincts have created an interdependence that is rewarding to both of you.

For your dog, you are a source of food, shelter and security. The very things, in evolutionary terms, dogs seek from other members of its pack. In that sense, your dog is connected to you.

It is not conscious, it is instinctive. It is not willing your good, but it results in goods for you in terms of companionship and pleasure. Just because it is not love does not mean it is without its rewards for both of you - and that should be good enough.

[zagor]

But dogs DO risk their own health, safety and well-being for the sake of their human - it happens on a regular basis. Recently a man was saved from an attack by a bear when his 6 month old German Shepard went after it when it attacked him, leading to the pups demise. In many less dramatic ways they do things that are not in their own self-interest in order to benefit (by their perception) their owner. Many human feelings have similar outlets in higher animals. And dogs are intelligent animals, capable of decision making at the level of a young child.

[nightdrot]

@zagor You are, again, confusing love with instinct. Pack animals will protect other animals of the pack as a survival instinct. The dog protected the man because the man was the source of food and shelter. Not because the dog consciously decided that the man's life was inherently more worthy than its own.

Would the dog have acted as it did had the man been a complete stranger? Would the dog, had it happened to walk by the moment the bear attacked a man with which it had no previous connection rushed to the man's defense, or would it have run away, choosing its own survival?

Calling an instinct a choice is a conflation of terms and a blurring of definitions. Love, again, is willing the good of the other as the other. Dogs have no notion of good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice. Without that basic distinction, the idea of love is not possible.

[zagor]

Actually studies have shown that dogs do have a sense of fairness. They also at times seem to exhibit embarrassment, depression, grief, and even a mischievous sense of humor.

And dogs don't limit their affection to those who provide food and shelter- dogs have friends, whether human or canine, and sometimes other species.

[nightdrot]

@zagor Such studies have demonstrated that dog's exhibit behavioral traits that humans then interpret as something similar to the emotional states that humans experience. In truth, there is no way to empirically prove that a dog has those feelings.

There is no way to read the dog's mind, nor to demonstrate that the animal is making conscious choices. It ends up being - pardon the small pun - a case of intellectual tail chasing.

You can observe any array of behavior patters in an animal that resemble human behavior patterns. That, however, is not then demonstrable proof that the same emotions and intellectual processes are at work.

[zagor]

Yes, animals have their own agenda. But there is no reason to believe that humans have exclusive license on emotions and feelings. In fact it would run counter to evolutionary evidence to suggest that everything about the way we think and feel is exclusive to our species.

[nightdrot]

@zagor You start at the problem. An animal cannot have "an agenda."

An agenda is a rational prioritizing of goals and objectives. An animal does not choose - it acts by instinct - and therefore cannot rationalize its priorities. It cannot decide other than what it decides as it has no moral focal point.

Man transcends his evolutionary instincts - he chooses. (Sometimes well, sometimes not - but that is another matter.)

Raise a baby wolf to be the best wolf it can be, it will still be a wolf. Raise a human baby to be the best human it can be, and it may write sonnets or cure cancer. It transcends its evolutionary nature in a way that the wolf not only does not - but CANNOT.

That is the difference.

[zagor]

Actually animals do have an agenda, in the sense of having a list of goals - just because it is dictated by instinct doesn't make it less so. It generally revolves around basic survival and reproduction. Which, bottom line, is also what many human agendas are driven by.

[nightdrot]

@zagor You are educing the word agenda to the point of reductio ad absurdum. An agenda is a rationally chosen list of priorities.

To the best of my knowledge, no dog - or other animal - said to himself, "Today I shall forego eating so that I can meet the love of my life." A dog responds to stimuli - that is not the same thing as choosing an agenda.

[zagor]

If you watch pack animals hunt, they can be quite organized, not randomly chasing prey, and take roles in the hunt. A dog's natural instinct when you send it after a bird you shot, is to eat it.

[nightdrot]

@zagor That is instinct. That is not a rationally prioritized agenda. The dogs do not sit down and say, "Okay, Fido, you go left. Spot, you circle to the right."

You are , misusing what words mean. An agenda is a pre-set rationalized itemization and prioritization of goals and objectives. That is quite a different thing from pack behavior.

[zagor]

That isn't instinct, it is learned behavior. If you let a bunch of wolf cubs grow up without adults, they aren't going to know how to hunt as a pack.

[nightdrot]

@zagor Yes, but the actions in any given circumstance are not logically prioritized and determined. It is not a plan. Rather, it is aping the behaviors of other animals of the same species. That is instinctive behavior, not rational analysis and prioritization.

[zagor]

That is not instinctive, it is learning. Some behaviors eventually become instinctive, through selective breeding. But complex interactions are learned behavior.

A dog I had growing up would spend most of the day in the backyard, but we would always know when my dad was coming home because she would pass by the kitchen window on her way to greet him, and sure enough he would pull up within two minutes. She apparently had learned to associate the distinct sound of his engine coming down the street with his arrival. Lots of other cars came down the road during the day, but she only went out front for his. How is that instinct?

[nightdrot]

@zagor Not quite sure that you see the contradiction. This is learned behavior - through selective breeding?

See the problem? Interbreeding is a survival instinct caused by various pressures, just for starters.

Bottom line, though, is words means something - specifically. An agenda is not an instinct. (If nothing else, that is why we have different words for them and they are not synonyms.) An agenda is - to repeat - a rationalized priroritizing of goals and objectives. Animals don't do that.

[zagor]

I said some behavior is through selective breeding, like the herding instinct of some types of dogs. That had nothing to do with the comment on my dog.

Animals do in fact exhibit behaviors that require thought and learning. No instinct tells a rat it can get a pellet by pushing a bar in a research lab.

[musicbrain5]

Both of you are overanalyzing the subject of a lighthearted MyTake, to the point that you're now arguing semantics. Dogs are great companions no matter what, and it's fun to be part of the pack.

[nightdrot]

@musicbrain5 The point of this site is interesting discussions - and this has been interesting. Delving into such subjects as epistemology, for example. That is hardly a problem for me.

Besides, as you will note, I finished my original comment saying exactly what you just said. Come what may, dogs are great companions. You will get no argument from me.

[musicbrain5]

I get that, and I support interesting and in depth discussions even if I'm not too good at them myself. I just thought that this MyTake was fun and cute, and perhaps not meant to be taken so seriously. Whether or not animals actually have emotions a much deeper topic and there would be better, more relevant discussion if it were a separate question or MyTake.

[nightdrot]

@musicbrain5 Well, you can't control how your ideas might provoke other ideas. Sometimes from small seeds great oaks grow...

Frankly, you deserve some credit in that regard. It was a lighthearted piece with an underlying and more serious point. That is what we call a good question.

[briecheese07]

Not all dogs carry your shoes around lol. But other than that, good take! Animals are the BEST.

[RedRobin]

Dogs don't have to do literally everything on this list to show they love you, every dog is different. It's just like how every person is different, people show their love in different ways.

[BeMuse]

My dog presses the top of his head against me to try to hug me… If I’m sitting on the floor he will try to do a front flip into my lap to be in a puppy pile and he's 90 LB.

[Hispanic-Cool-Guy]

So nice, My dog sure does seek a lot physical connection but problem is he does when I'm sleeping. Ugh

I love my buddy though.

[sawno]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyUkbQBS74I

[sawno]

1:05 will be the part where your absolutely certain

[Ella_101]

These husky vids recently popped up on my YouTube feed... There so adorable. I love 😍

[DANNYKWOK]

My dog cuddle with every night, follow me around, eat beside me, kiss me when come home from work. So yeah my dog loves me very much.

[musicbrain5]

Cute MyTake. I have two dogs and they're just the best friends anyone could ever ask for. Two big balls of fun 😃

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

Thank you for sharing your MyTake with us well appreciated
I miss having a dog i loss my Cockerspaniel March 31 , 2016
can't wait to move some place where i can have my own dog.

[numerouno85]

I come in the door and my dog lowers his head puts his ears down and walks towards me wagging his tail. It never gets old

[RedRobin]

Awww, that's so cute

[Salsacumbia]

My dog is the best furry first pet i have ever own, and she is amazing!

[WillyD]

Dogs can't love. They're pack animals and you're the pack leader. Love is a human emotion and their behavior is something you interpret as love.

[Ella_101]

Yes they do

[SuccessfulHornDog]

Way to ruin it willy

[Paris13]

This is so Beautiful, @RedRobin.
man's Best Friend to the End. xxoo

[Kayla45]

My dogs love me and I love them in return. They are very loyal and kind.

[SuccessfulHornDog]

Our dog has a problem with biting a chewing us and everything else in the house. I fear for our Christmas tree

[Anonymous]

I dive into a river and pretend to drown. if he saves me then he loves me. and if he does not save me, I run him. LOL

[Anonymous]

Get a cat. Pay it with cat treats and toys to order your dog to love you. Problem solved.

[Logorithim]

Great stuff, here decoding "Dog Body Language".

[Anonymous]

my dog growls and barks at me. I have to sprint back to the house if he knows I'm in the yard.
The only time I get to be in the yard is when he is eating. Once he finishes he tries to hunt me.

[Therisinghero12]

Walk out of the door, wait 5 minutes, come back inside, see how they react, boom got your answer