I came down the stairs into a sunlit living room and found all of my dogs lounging in the early-morning rays.
All three of them lifted their heads to watch me descend the stairs and I could see the contentment in their faces.
As I became more aware of each of them looking at me, I felt an overwhelming amount of love for them. When I looked at Piper's dark brown head resting on his front feet in the warmth of the sun my heart strings pulled as I noticed the grey hairs around his eyes. There now seemed to be a few more that have appeared around his muzzle. He has added such joy to my life. Zumi tires easily now and the morning sun seems to rejuvenate her before she starts her day. Today, her bottom lids hung heavy and for the first time I noticed - or maybe she allowed me to notice - that she was showing weariness, probably after many years of feeling the need to guard her pack mates and me. Then there is Raider, whose young face is filled with wonder and curiosity with an expression that says "So what are we doing now?" His impossibly flexible body was contorted in ways only a puppy could bend as he attempted to feel the heat of the sun on his stomach.
One might say that I have an "overly" healthy love for my dogs but, as the saying goes, my dogs are not my whole life, but they make my life whole.
When I began training dogs almost 20 years ago my life goal wasn't to become a dog trainer. It just fell into my lap as something to do because I didn't know what else to do. I didn't have any "control issues" I needed to work out through controlling dogs, nor did I expect to make loads of money as an entrepreneur. I began working with dogs because I fell in love with them. I began to see the world through their eyes and that is when I fell in love with the world.
Over the years, I have questioned whether dogs can express love to people. Research suggests that dogs do not have the emotional capacity for love. They are creatures of habit and comfort and learn that certain behaviours get rewarded and certain ones don't. Therefore they learn to express behaviours that get them the greatest rewards. What we see as love and affection is simply dogs showing learned behaviours that we interpret as love.
But as someone who has spent 20 years living and working closely with dogs, I can say there is more to these creatures we share our lives with than conditioned responses to a stimuli.
When you ask any dog person what they love about dogs their first response is "they love unconditionally." That means to love without judgment, conditions or expectations. Dogs give to us and ask for nothing in return but are grateful for whatever they receive. Their exuberant wag of a tail for the simple gesture of a pat on the head is evidence of that.
They are the ultimate teachers and the purveyors of unconditional love. If animals without a spoken language, that we can understand, can teach us about unconditional love simply by being in our presence, how can they themselves not feel it?
For example, in order for one person to sense anger from another person, that other person must be feeling angry.
So we can argue that if we feel unconditional love from our dogs, then our dogs do in fact express the feelings of unconditional love.
But you all didn't need me to tell you that did you?
Joan is the owner of K9 Kinship Ltd. Contact her at k9kinship. com.
