I couldn’t remove you from your partner and say: ‘I’ve got a friend who’s a much better fit for you.’ Whereas, if I took Romeo and gave him to someone else, three months on, that’ll be his owner.” A sound point, but if Romeo died, three months on, I’d probably have a new dog. They do things that we interpret as love, but they don’t have the capacity, not the way we mean it. Because I don’t think any animal loves us. Many years ago there was a segment on Kilroy, the daytime TV show, called “I love my animal but does my animal love me?” Alleyne appeared on it and remembers: “The audience were ready with a gallows for me by the end. The same expression on a German shepherd will look like it’s curling its lips back.” Care “Generally, dogs with broad faces – staffies, rottweilers – look like they’re grinning. However, owners of some breeds believe their dogs are more smiley than average and therefore happier. Dogs, he found, can sound as if they’re laughing when they’re panting, but that’s because they are: when you analyse the pant with a sonograph, then map its burst of frequencies, then play those frequencies to other dogs, it reduces stress and increases tail wagging, play-bows (head down, butt in the air stance) play-face (you know your dog’s play-face) and pro-social behaviour in general.Īll dogs have an expression of pleasure or contentment, which you’ll recognise as you get to know a particular animal.
One of the most famous strands of Panksepp’s research looks at laughter in non-human mammals (including a paper with the delicious title: 50-kHz Chirping (Laughter?) in Response to Conditioned and Unconditioned Tickle-induced Reward in Rats). Whaddya mean, can a dog smile? Photograph: Catherine Ledner/Getty ImagesĬan dogs laugh – and do they make each other laugh?
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