Nature Journal: Part 11

For my eleventh nature journal, I decided to write about my experience with a group of therapy dogs in the commons. I had just finished my genomics lab and I was walking to Chick-fil-A to get some dinner when I noticed a group of students gathering near the post office. As I approached, the sound of laughter started to fill the air. It was not long before I noticed tiny white and brown heads bobbing in-between the legs students sitting on the green grass. There were four dogs, two of which were puppies. After talking with the owners, I learned that the two older dogs were his personally and he was fostering the puppies through a training program to become service dogs. In fact, the puppies’ trip to TCU was an aspect of the socialization portion of the training program. As he talked about the stages of the program, I could not help but think of the puppies as students who need to go through specific stages of school before being able to graduate. Although I have always believed that animals can feel and express feelings, it was not until we broke down the concept of anthropomorphism in class that I started to understand the extent to which we view animals in a human light. While it is easy to attribute our labeling of animal actions as human simply because we have no other way of describing them, I believe there is more to the story. I truly believe we label the actions and emotions of animals in human terms because they genuinely represent our feelings. I watched as these little puppies jumped around and licked anything they could get their mouth on. There was no doubt in my mind that these puppies were experiencing joy. They were surrounded by people who love them while being able to play outside in the warmth of the sun. Even the older dogs appeared to express their happiness by wagging their tales as they sat on their sides while swarms of students stroked their belly’s. I cannot imagine what other emotion these animals would be feeling in that situation other than happiness.