What does your dog think youre doing, when you get in the shower? What does he think is happening when the phone rings? What could he possibly be thinking when hes purposely rolling around in a rotten pile of fish and mud?
I guess I know what people are wondering when they ask the question, and I know its fun to make up anthropomorphic thoughts and imagine our dogs saying them in funny Scooby-Doo type voices:
I join in the game sometimes. This is my rendition of what I thought would be pretty funny if crickets are actually saying, chirping away in the trees:
Fun as it is, though, Ive never really understood the question. Or at least how to answer it in any serious way. Because dogs dont think in words.
Dogs dont rationalize the way humans do. They dont lay out questions, answers, beliefs, arguments, and objections the way we do. They dont name numbers, or quantify time. They dont make plans for the future or regret what happened in the past. They dont think of how things could have been but arent, and they dont have our concepts of "normal" and "weird". They dont consciously hate, nor do they avow personal promises of loyalty.
Dogs simply feel.
They want; they crave. They love; they fear. They relax; they tense up. They explode with joy or frustration. Most of the time when someone asks "What is that dog thinking?", the only correct answer is that hes simply perceiving, taking in, experiencing ... and his feelings ebb and flow with that experience.
Of course how a dog is feeling about whatevers going in is very important. Are his ears back, or forward? Brow furrowed or relaxed? Eyes thin, or are the whites showing? Tail tucked or up? Head low or high? And so on. Read a dogs emotions and you know all you need to know.
Dogs dont often make funny quips that would sell as taglines on postcards. They wouldnt make good stand-up comics. But theyre fine with that.
Or so I think.
