She is 12, today was the first day she didn't greet me at the door.

Morals are nothing more or less than a set of rules built to best adapt to an social environment. You might think they are something uniquely human, but you're wrong. And this is not philosophy, it's science. If you're coming at this from sort of religious stand point, we have nothing more to discuss.

But emotions and the ability to discern right from wrong are not unique to the human animal. Chimps and apes show plenty of both. They engage in murder and attempt to hide it. They mourn their dead in an immediately discernable way. So do dogs, by the way. That you don't want to believe it is on you, not me. Do dogs feel guilt? I suspect they feel some level of guilt. But then, guilt is a learned emotion. Children do not feel guilt until they have developed a cognitive level and enough experience in human relations to learn what it is and why they should feel guilty for steeling candy or hitting. And dogs have been shown to have developmental traits on a par with a two year old. That ain't opinion, that's been researched and found true repeatedly in numerous tests. If their intellectual ability is that high, then their ability to learn morals is probably higher than you seem to believe as well.

Do dogs feel guilt? Probably, on some level, they do. THey are certainly smart enough to learn to. Can they control their actions and overcome their immediate response to stimulae in order not to feel guilty? Very spotty evidence shows that they can about on a par with a two year old again.

You're arguing with someone who has been in school to be a teacher and taken enough human development classes to actually grok this. We tend to discount animals and their mental abilities. That's hubris. Science shows otherwise.

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