Is doing something good for your dog the same as doing something good for a person?

When we do something nice for someone we feel good about ourselves. The reasons we feel good are complex and varied. It’s partly about belief system, partly about expectations, partly about how we perceive the receiver of our good deeds reacting to them, and partly biological.

Without asking you to take apart the mechanism that allows you to feel good about doing good, I’m curious about your relative sense of “goodness” when helping another person or alternatively helping an animal such as a pet dog.

Do you feel the same uplift when you do a good deed for two-legged and four-legged friends? Can you say why it is that one feels better than the other?