Do you think there can be an honest, genuine friendship between a human and an animal as if they were two humans or two animals?

Yes. I liken it to two radios being tuned to the same wavelength.

Why not, are our pets not like this already to a degree? Ever just “click” with a dog?

Not on a human intellectual level no, but on an emotional, companionable and trust level absolutely. My 20 year old pet goose and I have deep, mutual bond, as he was a human imprint baby and he prefers me over all other geese hands down. We have spent many happy hours just hanging out together communing, and the same with my two, current cats. My female Siamese especially, she is very bonded with me and I with her. She never stays out for long and seeks me out on the property if she sees me and follows me everywhere.

@Coloma Phrased it really well. I know dogs and humans have co-evolved (literally) for mutual benefit over the years (millions? hundreds of thousands?). It certainly seems like pets (dogs for certain) are capable of genuine empathy.

Honest genuine cross-species friendship yes, though for the second part it depends on what you mean by “as if they were two humans or two animals”.

Human society tends to object when you treat animals like full humans, or a human behaves entirely like an animal. ;-)

Absolutely.

I totally believe that humans and animals can be genuine friends but it’s always going to be a friendship of a different nature than what I’d have with another human. A cat and I can’t speak to each other so we communicate through cuddles, pets, and purring, which is more than enough to show that we enjoy each other’s company.

Well, some people delude themselves into thinking our pets, especially dogs, understand far more than they’re actually capable of.
As for basic trust and “love,” yes.

Yes, with benefits.

@Dutchess_III actually people usually underestimate what dogs understand and are capable of.

Sometimes. Sometimes they over estimate, and then get frustrated with the animal.

Not to dismiss the question, but I wanted to state for the record that a human and an animal ARE two animals.

But with different behaviors and different instinctive triggers.

@Dutchess_III Right, I usually don’t pounce on lizards or stalk gopher holes and I don’t bury my poo in a litterbox. LOl

What Coloma said in her first post.

My first dog nearly lost his life defending me from a Bobcat. That is a courage and loyalty that most humans never attain. He could have easily left me behind to be the bait in order to protect his own life. My present relationships with my two Border Collies are quite tight and communication with them is sophisticated and subtle. We often communicate without speaking and we can read each others moods. We each can tell when the other is happy, annoyed, depressed or feeling ill and we each express sympathy in our own languages.

I fell off my horse once not long ago and the pup began running around in circles whimpering in panic and stopping to sniff me intermittently to assess the damage. That is a level of empathy most humans don’t attain until they are close to adolescence.

My horse will argue with me when she doesn’t want to do something. No kidding. A bribe of sugar cane will usually do the trick and she’ll still be reluctant, but she understands a deal is a deal. She shows offense when I don’t recognise proper horse etiquette and communicates this first with her ears, then head shakes, then full body language if the behaviour persists. Yes, there are certain behaviours horses recognise as rude. She is extremely intelligent, but no matter what I say and do, I still can’t get her to understand that the center of the universe she is not.

Dakota is so cool. It’s only been recently that she decided to clue us in that we are NOT alpha in her pack. All these years she allowed us to believe we were, silly human egos.

@Espiritus_Corvus She’s got you wrapped around her little hoof. LOL
My old horse and I had this ritual where he always insisted on jumping across a ravine across the road from my old house when we went out riding. He just loved to jump but he needed to learn that I was the one that decided when and what and if we jumped anything. haha
My solution to the issue was to discipline him to WALK across, back and forth, several times and stand collected without fidgeting.

After he followed my direction and respected me as the one who gave the commands I would then reward him with a gallop which he loved. He would stand and paw at the ground and toss his head to show me how irritated he was that I would not allow him to jump. haha

^^LOL. Atta cowgurl. Our working relationship is quite different. She is a trained herder of other herbivores and loves her work. Once we are out in the meadow with the sheep, she is strictly business and is simultaneously aware of where the dogs are and attentive to every slight pressure of my knees. She is quite a girl.

^ You’ve got a sheep cutter there Crow. She’s got sheep sense like a cow horse has cow sense. Here ya go! haha

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pCc87_y8H8

I won’t do sugar-coating and will just be realistic. The very reason why animals, such as the ancestors of wolves joined human was because of our ability to provide food for them. If we never continiously and periodically feed our animals they’ll see that there’s no benefit to stick with us and will prefer to spend their time looking for food. Our ability to eliminate their chores of looking for food had allowed the animals to trust us as safe and reliable food supply as well as the free time to bond with human (which otherwise would had been used to search for food).

Never feed your pets and allow them to roam free, eventually they’ll go away to live with other people that’ll look after them.

@Unofficial_Member Yes, we domesticated animals by providing food in exchange for what the animals could provide for us, rodent control, guard duty, etc. but your statement is simply not true. My cats roam and always come home. Animals also associate and bond with their home turf and home is a big motivator beyond just a need for food. My neighbors dogs come swim in the pond here but then they go home.

@Coloma Forgive me but I’m just too sceptical for that, but perhaps it can be a case by case scenario, for the sake of benefit of doubt. I’ve heard many cat owners said that their cat will only come near them when they bring food. Your cats have probably been raised with ample food supply in the first place (which had allowed them the time and motivation to stay and bond with you) so no matter how far they roam the mountain they can always prefer to come back due to their initial bond with you and the realization that your house is a safe place to stay. Coloma, I feel that those dogs you mentioned probably just used your pond for amusement and come back to their owners that treat them better.

As I said, it’s all because we helped the animals first by providing food and safe place to stay that they’ll allow the opportunity to bond with us. You help them, they help you. Of course we want to call it genuine friendship or such but that is human’s idea.

He meant don’t feed them and they’ll leave and find someone who will @Coloma.

@Unofficial_Member I agree, in the dawn of animal domestication but after thousands of years of domestication and selective breeding I think we have created animals that are more than just food dependent on humans. Of course the neighbor dogs use my pond for fun but it has nothing to do with how I treat them, I don’t interact with them at all. The point is they roam around and go back to their homes. I am not one to anthropmorphize myself but I do believe our domestic pets feel connection and emotion towards us and if treated well absolutely prefer to be with us.

It has been studied that cats actually see their humans as a parent cat, and dogs see their humans as family members.

Because they are fed at home @Colons. His point is if you QUIT FEEDING THEM they will leave.
My cat roams too. Growing up in the country I had free range dogs and cats. We could leave them for a week and they’d be home to greet us when we got home.

@Dutchess_III Colons really? LOL

Colons really?

On the mobile site, Fluther doesn’t fill in user names like the full site. When you’re commenting from your phone your typos shine through.

@Unofficial_Member LOL. I can understand where your skepticism comes from. You live in a world where people think having dog means to keep it in a cage in the garage or living room while they are at work. Or they live in cities or suburbs where, if they do let their dog run free, it will be thrown in jail. LOL. That’s no way to have a dog; keeping them locked in a house or an apartment all day and night. Dogs need to be out and they need to run with their pack. They are pack animals. And if you want a tight relationship with them, the kind of relationship I described above, you must earn a slot in the pack. You need to run with them. You need to spend time with them.

So, it’s no wonder to me that people today have no understanding of the depth of relationship between humans and dogs. Dogs are treated as mere accessories in this sanitized world. You can’t take it everywhere with you, it was only in the last few years that a very few restaurants and other businesses would allow dogs.

With a dog, you get back exactly what you invest. You need to spend a lot of time with them and that is impossible for many people to do nowadays. When I get a pup—and this is appalling to many people—that pup sleeps in my bed at night until they are old enough to go outside with the other animals. that pup is with me at all times. I become their momma and that is how you bond. You provide warmth, love, comfort, food and protection from the time they come into your life.

My adult dogs sleep on a rug at the foot of my bed. We spend our days working together. We are rarely out of each other’s sight. The relationship is extremely tight and the communication is at times extremely poignant.

I am the undisputed Alpha of the pack. They will stay with me and even bring me food, if I can’t provide food for myself. But as alpha, I provide, I direct and I protect. They serve loyally in return. And we often sing together at night. When I am on land, we are together 24/7.

But, I understand why most people think the way you do. They don’t know how to bond with a dog. They don’t have the opportunity to do it properly because of the world they live in. Few have a lifestyle that can allow them to spend the time with a dog that is required to have such a relationship.

A dog can truly be your best friend, but if you keep your best friend locked in a bloody cage or left alone all day in a house or garage, I doubt they will be your best friend for long. LOL.

^ yep.

@Espiritus_Corvus Those people in your imagination are terrible with dogs! They don’t understand that dogs need smug condescension and self-congratulatory navel gazing to thrive!

I think Jay is being sarcastic…

I feel I’ve had two pets in my life that have been real friends. Others I have loved, but the bond was never as strong as it was with these two.

My dog, Ollie, died last year. He was always by my side when I was home. He would actually talk to me. Now, I think I’m the intelligent human, but I never got to understand his dog talk, but he understood my English, human talk. If I said ‘shall we go and see what the postie left?’ he was up and off to the front door. If I went to the kitchen and said ‘do you want a treat’, he was by the treat cupboard. He would actually argue with me. If I said no to treats, he would sit there and argue the toss. In his dog language. I couldn’t tell you the actual words he was saying, but at times, his meaning was very clear. He was answering me back.

In the morning, we had a bit of a ritual where he would hop on the bed and cuddle with me. We both loved that time of the day. Snoozing together after my husband left for work.

He was my friend as much as any human has ever been. I loved our little chats and I miss him.

Well, he didn’t literally understand you any more than you understood him. He heard your inflections and meanings in your voice, they way you heard his when he was “arguing.” When you said, “shall we go and see what the postie left?” He picked up on “postie,” more than anything, which told him where to go, and “goandsee” next, which told him to move. And the question inflection was a sign for him do Do Something (like “get up.”)

^His, or her full understanding isn’t necessarily needed for a friendship bond…

I know that. I never said it was.

@Dutchess_III, well he did understand me. If he understood ‘Postie’ he understood that word. I read somewhere dogs can understand about 500 words. That’s 500 words in English more than I can understand in Dog. I do know he’s not using words, he’s just making noises, but it certainly seemed that he thought he was having a conversation with me. I’d speak, then he would ‘speak’. It was quite funny. I remember a friend being there and watching us having one of our little chats, and she was amazed. He was a very talkative boy. A bit like that video you see with the dog and the meat.

@Earthbound_Misfit is right, dogs can understand a number of words no matter what the inflection or who the speaker is. That’s why they can be trained to respond to the same commands spoken by excitable young children as well as feeble elders.

Yes, dogs can understand a lot of words.

A friend had a dog who would fetch the specific toy you asked for. She had a ball, a baby (doll), a bone, a biggie (big ball) and more than I can remember.

What is a border collie by chance @Call_Me_Jay?

Clearly one of these

Misprint. I meant was it a border collie. I know what they are. I have one.

Yeah, that was a border collie @ragingloli.

Most advanced AKC Obedience courses will include training for specific object retrieval by name. I have seen labs, dachshunds, and various sighthounds excel at that training, that kind of canine ability is not restricted o herders.

@Dutchess_III The dog with the big vocabulary was a lab.

A border collie would probably know how to arrange the toys in alphabetical order.

I think…I wish we had spent more time training our collie. I see flashes of intelligence between her hysteria. SHE is always trying to tell us something. But Rick and I are like “We’ll she has rabies again.”
We are so simple minded.

Boder Collies are the most intelligent breed.