The Begging Question:Does My Dog Miss Me?

Amirah Ahmad

狗狗，是人类最早驯化的动物，被称为人类最忠诚的伙伴。可这些小伙伴在我们不在时会想我们吗？这可能是我们一厢情愿地把自己的感情投射到了这些懵懵懂懂的汪星人身上了。我们在想它们，没准它们只是在想好吃的骨头呢！

It had been about a month since I had last seen my dog. Last weekend, my dad travelled down to visit me at college with my dog. When I stepped out of the dorm,I saw her head peeking out through the window of the car.1. dorm: 宿舍；peek out:探头往外看。As soon as she saw me,her body began to shake from the thrusts2. thrust: 推力。of her tail and she nearly jumped out of the window.

That made me wonder: did my dog realize it had been a month and that’s why she was so happy? Or was it simply because I was a familiar face?

Honestly speaking, the most tearful3. tearful: 泪流满面的。goodbye when going off to college was when I was hugging my dog. I remember the tears rolling down my cheeks, dripping into her fur. After I let go, she galloped off to happily finish her food as I sat there grief-stricken at the thought of leaving her.4. gallop off: 飞奔； griefstricken: 伤心欲绝的。

We often tell our friends and family we’re going to miss our dog the most before going off to college. They think it’s a joke, but we dog-lovers know it’s the truth. The painful truth is revealed when you bypass your siblings to hug your tail-wagging, furry beast instead.5. bypass: 绕开，忽视；sibling: 兄弟姐妹；tailwagging: 摇尾巴的；furry: 毛绒绒的。Or possibly when you ask to see your dog after FaceTime-ing your mother for a measly6. measly: 微不足道的。20 seconds.

Despite what I felt, however, I wondered if my dog misses me as much as I miss her? Is a dog really as loyal as you wish him to be?

I’ll start with the positive first. Dogs do miss us, according to Gregory Burns fromPsychology Today7. Psychology Today: 《今日心理学》，是美国的一本杂志，于1967年成立，对人类的所有行为、心理健康进行分析，从头脑的简单运作到人与人之间的相互联系。.

Burns also cited Therese Rehn’s and Linda Keeling’s study, which showed that dogs can perceive8. perceive: 理解，认识。time to a certain extent. In their 2011 study, they found out that dogs greeted their owners with more passion after two hours compared to only 30 minutes of being left alone. Beyond this time frame, however, dogs’perception remains unclear. The study showed that there was no difference between the greeting after two hours and the greeting after four hours.

Can a dog tell if you’ve been gone a day? A week? Although there is no evidence that directly answers this question, Burns believes dogs may have the ability to recognize the passage of time through distension of the bladder or hunger.9. 尽管没有证据直接解答该问题，伯恩斯还是认为狗狗们可以通过膀胱的扩张或饥饿来认知时间的流逝。distension: 膨胀，扩张；bladder: 膀胱。

To my dismay, however, some people are skeptical of the theories proposed.10. to sb’s dismay: 使……失望的是；be skeptical of: 对……怀疑，质疑。Take Lindsay Stordahl, for example, from dog blog ThatMutt.com. She left her dog, Ace, with her parents for over two weeks as she spent her time travelling.She missed him. But did he miss her?

Apparently not. As soon as Stordahl left her mutt11. mutt: 杂种（宠物）狗。at her parents house, Ace acted as if everything was normal. He began to play with Stordahl’s parents’dogs as if nothing had changed.

One point Stordahl brings up is that dogs feed off12. feed off: 从……获得供应，靠……给养。of our energy. This means that the overwhelming greeting you received from your dog when you went back home was actually just your dog reacting to your own emotions. If you leaped through the doorway exclaiming your dog’s name with open arms, chances are your dog was excited because you were simply there, not because you were gone for a month.13. 如果你一路欢跃地穿过门厅，张开双臂大声喊着你家狗狗的名字，它的兴奋很有可能只是因为你在那里，而不是因为你离家一个月后归来。leap: 蹦蹦跳跳；exclaim: 大声喊叫。Try this out: when you return home, walk in with a stone cold expression. Refrain from14. refrain from: 克制，忍住。showing any excitement and analyze his behavior.Chances are he won’t be excited to see you either.

Stordahl also refutes15. refute: 反驳。the claim that dogs have a concept of time. She believes dogs don’t worry about events in the future or what’s already happened in the past, for they’re simply preoccupied with making the most out of their current situation.16. 她认为狗狗们不会担心未来会发生或者过去已经发生的事情，他们仅仅是专注于如何充分利用好当下的形势。be preoccupied with: 全神贯注于，沉浸在；make the most out of: 充分利用。They don’t have episodic memory, which means they can’t recall isolated moments in the past.17. episodic memory: 情节记忆；recall: 回忆，想起；isolated: 单独的。

A significant isolated moment they may tend to forget is you actually leaving for college, even though you may have drenched your face with tears.18. significant: 重大的；drench with:被……浸湿。This is the painful truth.

In a way, however, this is a curse and a blessing.19. curse: 诅咒；blessing: 祝福。A curse for you, a blessing for them.If dogs weren’t blessed with their adaptability20. adaptability: 适应能力。, a new home or life in the shelter would be absolutely terrible.

There may be a chance that we humanize21. humanize: 人性化。our dogs too much. We label our dogs as acting mad, excited, and nervous only because we think that’s what they should be feeling.

Far off from the point, however, there are some dog qualities we just have to admire:

1) Dogs have religious experiences: You may be skeptical, but dogs have the same spiritual center of the brain as humans.22. religious: 宗教的；skeptical: 怀疑的；spiritual: 精神的，心灵的。Therefore, the religious experience you go through when watching the sunrise, gazing across the horizon at the top of a mountain,or during any other meditative moment, dogs go through the same feelings as you do.23. 因此，当你在山巅凝视地平线观看日出，或者在进行其他深入思考时，你所经历的那些宗教体验，狗狗也全都经历过。gaze: 凝视，注视；meditative: 冥想的，沉思的。

2) Dogs have near death experiences: That feeling of low blood flow to the eyes after a cardiac arrest or fainting in humans is a feeling that can be shared by man’s best friend.24.那种人类心脏骤停或者眩晕之后眼睛一黑（眼内的血流量降低）的感觉，人类最好的朋友也有。cardiac arrest: 心脏骤停；fainting: 昏厥。

3) Dogs can have something similar to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD): Caused by boredom, stress, or rewards at inappropriate times, Canine Compulsive Disorder (CCD)can be considered analogous to OCD in humans.25. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder:强迫症；boredom: 无聊；Canine Compulsive Disorder: 犬类强迫症；analogous: 类似的。Symptoms of CCD can be excessive tail-licking and chasing, chasing of shadows, snapping at flies and more.26. symptom: 症状；excessive: 过度的，过量的；tail-licking: 舔尾巴；snap at: 向……猛咬。

I apologize for the brief diversion27. diversion: 偏离。, but these facts are pretty impressive if I do say so myself.

Despite a canine’s admirable psychological28. psychological: 心理上的。states like being able to have a religious experience, it’s hard to make the claim that my dog misses me. However, I could also simply give my dog the benefit of the doubt29. the benefit of the doubt: 疑罪从无，指在罪证不足的情况下被假定为无罪。and ignore everything I’ve just recently learned. I’ll simply believe my dog to be happy and as excited to see me as I am to see her. The tail wagging, the slobbery30. slobbery: 多口水的。kisses, and the jumping is all a result of my dog missing me while I was at college.

Ignorance is bliss.31. Ignorance is bliss: 无知是福。Am I right?