When it comes to dogs, we get emotional because we're so linked to them.
More than one anthropologist has observed that without dogs and horses, human civilization simply doesn't come to be.
While motorized transport has relegated horses to the sidelines, dogs remain as important to our psychological well-being as ever.
How else to explain the outpouring of emotion over the passing of Captain, the crippled dog found near death in a Vancouver dumpster last month?
Closer to home, emotions are running high after a local woman's efforts to adopt a German shepherd named Diesel from the North Cariboo branch of the SPCA was denied. Part of the reason given was that Myrna Mycock planned to tether Diesel temporarily in her yard as part of training and helping Diesel adapt to his new surroundings.
The research clearly indicates that unsupervised tethering is not good for a dog, both in the short term due to the risk of choking, and in the long term, because of the damaging behavioral traits it brings on.
To be fair, Mycock's tethering plan was part of an overall strategy to adapt the young and energetic dog to living on her rural property, particularly since the nine-month-old Diesel had spent much of his life tied up in his first owner's backyard.
Mycock is frustrated with the SPCA's decision, having obviously formed an emotional connection with the dog.
Dog lovers understand how easy it is to form such a bond so quickly. In the same way that people can form instant and long-lasting connections with others after one brief meeting, the same happens with dogs.
Unlike any other animal, dogs have learned how to read humans. Research shows that the human face is not symmetrical and that the right side of our face is a more accurate barometer of our feelings than the left, which is why we instinctively look at the right side of a person's face when listening to them.
So do dogs. Even pictures of humans gets dogs looking at the right side of the face.
And it works the other way around.
In research trials, all humans - not just dog owners - have a surprising capacity to extract information from dog barks, particularly regarding the dog's emotion. A scared bark sounds different from an angry bark sounds different from a playful bark and we know it.
That social intelligence goes a long way. Only dogs will see humans looking in a direction and turn to look themselves. Only dogs will see our hands pointing and turn to see.
The connection between humans and dogs happens at the physiological level, too. The same chemical that is released when a mother hold her newborn baby is the same chemical that is released by both dog and human when we pet them. Oxytocin also lowers our heart rate and our blood pressure.
No dog owner will be surprised by the following statistic - according to Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg, a Swedish researcher specializing in the hormone oxytocin, dog owners are much less likely to have a heart attack and the dog owners who do have a heart attack are three to four times more likely to survive than those who don't own a dog.
Dogs can literally smell our health.
Support dogs are now regularly trained to notice the change in a diabetic's breath when they have low blood sugar, alerting them or other adults that an insulin shot is needed immediately.
In clinical trials, dogs have been trained to be able to tell the difference between petri dishes with healthy blood cells and those containing cancerous cells, after just a few sniffs of the dish.
Like dogs, we are social creatures with an aversion to extended periods of solitude.
In other words, we look at dogs and see a four-legged reflection of ourselves -- a creature with the same social and emotional needs we have.
The SPCA's desire to provide the best home for Diesel is as strong as Myrna Mycock's.
Those competing desires come from a deeply human place.
Managing editor, Neil Godbout
