Frankly, I don't believe most people think, either.

Here's an excellent article on dog behavior at Slate.com. I was struck by this passage:

Do Dogs Think? - Owners assume their pet's brain works like their own. That's a big mistake. By Jon Katz: "This time, Heather got my full attention. I took notes, asked questions, then called a canine behaviorist at Cornell and explained the problem in as much detail as I could.'Everybody says the dog was reacting to her going back to work,' I suggested. 'Everybody is probably wrong,' was his blunt comeback. 'It's 'theory of mind.' This is what often happens when humans assume that dogs think the way we do.'"

I've lived my life around dogs and other animals. And I've found that the more I treat a dog like a dog and not like a child, the better it responds. Animals have emotions. They get angry, scared, get bored, and experience pleasure and pain. But like this article says, they don't think about things in the same way that humans do.

I grew up on a farm and always remember being around animals of all types and one of my earliest memories is going with my Grandpa Murray to pick out a long hair German Shepherd pup, Duke. Duke was a huge, dignified dog who was hit by a school bus when he was nearly a year old and walked with a limp for the rest of his life. One of his pups, sired with a neighboring collie, became my first dog, Nicky.

Nicky had Duke's size, but not his long hair. I remember getting him when I was six, the same year my brother was born. He and I were constant companions. He accompanied me on my daily cores. He stood by me and blocked the icy wind howling across the prairie as I pumped water for the cows. He played with us kids and never complained with any ill treatment, but he terrified adult strangers that came to the house and stared at them through their car doors, eye-to-eye. And I once saw him pick up a concrete cinder block that someone had left in the barn yard, carry it off under a tree, and chew it into pieces.

I thought of Nicky as my best friend. But I always thought of him as a dog. I don't know. Perhaps it was because I was raised on a farm and worked with lots of animals. But I'm also a big believer that humans and dogs have co-evolved, so we need each other. Dogs, above all other animals, have adapted themselves to living with us and providing us companionship. In a way, they're a very successful species because of that.

I strongly recommend Desmond Morris's book, Dogwatching. It was very helpful for me an my relationship with dogs.