The Emotional Lives of Animals Power Hour Reading

Name of Book: The Emotional Lives of Animals
Name of Chapter: The Case for Animal Emotions and Why They Matter

     I chose to read the first chapter of The Emotional Lives of Animals by Marc Bekoff for our power hour reading session. In Bekoff's book, he entails findings and studies that animals have a case for feelings and having emotions which are similar to human beings. He states in his thesis: "Careful scientific research is validating what we intuitively understand: that animals feel, and their emotions are as important to them as ours are to us." Using anecdotes of domestic animals, and studies of the relationships of children interacting with their pets, he portrays evidence that animals contain a high level of emotional intelligence. He observes the innate patterns that mother animals display through their care for their offspring and familial togetherness, proving animals contain the cognitive and emotional ability to express emotion. The main message through each situation shows that although animals do not have the capability to display love, a purely human emotion,  animal emotions are transparently obvious through their own resources; each species find their own unique ways of showing that display of caring emotion.

   In a section entitled "Dogs are Happy, Not "Happy" the author explains that an owner's dog expressed a large amount of energetic excitement towards her even when the owner had not called out the dog's name or signaled direct attention towards it. Although the owner made no special intonation towards her pet as she was merely conversing with other humans before leaving her house, when the "master" said "I'll leave him at home," the dog [instantly] turns dejectedly away and lies down again"(9). While this situation does not prove a case that animals love, it does show that they contain the capability to recognize a change in tone that correlates to a excited or disappointing emotion. Bekoff gives readers substantial peices of evidence through his stories and the conclusions he draws from them. In another study conducted with chimpanzee orphans provided a strong similarity of children who grew up without a mother. These chimpanzees behaved with symptoms of clinical depression: "hunched posture, rocking, dull staring eyes, [and a] lack of interest in events around them." Similar to the orphan children, they were also capable of suffering form their own grief. This proved that animals were therapeutic for humans, not because they were "soft. furry, and warm" but because animals are able to empathize with humans and come along side them in grief, excitement, or joy. Children always perferred the comfort of their pets over a fluffy soft toy because animals could connect to the children and relate to their feelings. These scenarios are very realistic and prove his thesis without stretching any biased beliefs, by simply observing more closely at the natural reactions of animals with humans and form the conclusions that animals are not just responsive to triggers or signals-- but they understand emotion and comprehend complex human scenarios without initiated explanation.