First, what's emotion? Emotion is any conscious experience characterized by intense mental activity and a certain degree of pleasure or displeasure. Do animals have emotions? Yes they do, unlike what most people think, animals are not devoid of emotions. They've have the ability to express different complex emotions like love, fear, anger, joy etc. Below are some examples of emotional animals
- Elephants : They're the largest land animals on earth and they're very emotional creatures. They can express so many complex emotions most people think were exclusive to humans.
Elephants express joy and happiness when they're among their loved ones. The birth of a baby elephant evokes a lot of happiness amongst the herd of elephants. Reunion of long separated relatives is another highly emotional moment for elephants.
The greatest love in the elephant society is the maternal love. The love an elephant has to his calf can not be compared to any love among elephants. She carries her calfs over obstacles, protects it with her life from predators. No wonder the bond between mother and daughter elephants can last more than 50 years.
Grief is another complex emotion that elephants can express. When an elephant passes the place a loved one died, it pauses and observe several minutes of silence. When they see they bone of another dead elephant, they may touch the bone and caress it with their trunk. Sort of paying their last respect to the bone.
Elephant feel range and stress and can suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. For example, baby elephants who witness the death of its family by poachers usually wake up at night screaming.
- Dogs: They're another highly emotional animals and not just some robot like creature programmed to act based on instinct. A fully grown dog has the same emotional capacity of a 2.5 years old child.
Dogs are very expressive animals and a person who is very observant can detect each emotion they're portraying. Dog feel joy, for example when you're playing with them or when they're are doing their favourite activity.
Fear is a familiar emotion for dogs and an essential mechanism for survival. It can be provoked by scary sounds, stressful situation, unusual things etc, but the amount of fear a dog experiences depends on how it was raised and it's individual personality.
Anger is a natural emotion for dogs. Anger or aggression can be caused by protective instincts, territorial issues and genetics. It is natural for them to feel that way.
Envy is another common emotion in dogs and no dog completely outgrows it. For example, when a new pet is bought or another dog trying to play with their toy, it becomes noticeably jealous.
They can show love and also sadness. Ever wonder why dogs try to cheer their owners up when they're sad. Some dogs have been noted to mourn their owners for a long time.
So before you think of maltreating any animal, always remember they're can feel and how you treat them can make a bad or good impact in impact in their lives.
