Do Dogs and Cats Love?

They do. It’s a matter of getting to know each other like any animal to animal interaction.
I had a 110 pound Akita (very dominant breed) who was best buddies with his life long cat friend Phoenix.
Kioko and Phoenix

How about these two….. :-/

Yes. For the purposes of this question, I’ll say love is complete merger with another, just melting into union. I see this in our cats.

Yesterday, I was trying to get some work done in my basement, where one of our cats lives. I was doing some wood work on a lathe, which stands about 4 feet off the floor. About every 10 minutes, I had to stop because the cat would climb up onto the lathe, balance precariously on the piece of wood I was forming, and reach from there up to my shoulder. I’d scoop the rest of him up in my arms and he simply melted into neck and shoulder and chest, clearly in some kind of ecstatic union. I can’t see that as anything other than love.

oh my yes they do love, with their whole little hearts and souls, they love us and ask for absolutely nothing in return. If only people could be as faithful and as loving as furbabies are, then it would be a nicer world. Welcome to Fluther @aLittleBit and what a lovely question :-)
huggles xx

They definitely exhibit behaviors that we can interpret as love. Whether or not they can experience love as we do is another story.

Anthropomorphism.

They certainly show affection and respond to affection. They show attachment to their S/O or owner all basic elements of love in the crude sense.

They also care for and protect their young.

dido on what @Cruiser said.

I think it’s significant that, as far as we can tell, the brain regions involved in the human experience of love aren’t the more evolved structures particular to humans. We share them with most mammals. There’s ample proof on fluther alone that we don’t have to engage our prefrontal cortex to feel love.

I’ve seen pictures of animals lying on top of or beside the graves of their owners or other pets in their home that have died. They experience grief, I think they can truly love in their animal way.

I’ve seen personally what @chyna is talking about. Our dogs Duke (cocker spaniel) and Tessa (Shepard lab mix) loved each other dearly. When Duke wandered out of the property because of old age and being deaf and blind, Tessa searched and searched for him, along with my dad. She didn’t eat much, she was slow moving and slept a lot. It took her a while to come out of it.

I believe that we humans act the same way personally when we loose someone we dearly love.

I have a loving and lovable “Tessa” too…my daughter!

My cat is completely in love with me. My dog that lives with my mom, Raggs, is completely in love with her too. It’s so apparent. So….I really absolutely think they do.

do they love…...what? us? each other?

I am pretty sure my cat loves me. She is very physically affectionate towards me and I perceive that as love.

Humans are self-conscious – self-reflexive – and I believe that has an impact on how we feel and think. How other animals hate, or love, etc., is not the same as how we hate or love etc. because their experience of those emotions is missing that self-conscious element.

Humans are also idle creatures and I think our idleness also has an impact on how we feel and think. Wild animals are generally so focused on survival that they don’t have time to experience many of the feelings humans often do – such as anxiety, and depression, and lovesickness (different from mourning or feeling loss – I’m talking Romeo styles, here). Domesticated animals (livestock and pets) do, however, exhibit signs of these feelings – I think because we’ve put them in the same position as ourselves: idleness. So, I think this is a difference between how wild and domesticated animals experience feelings.

Other than all that: Yes, absolutely, dogs and cats, as all mammals, can and do love. At the very least, it’s a survival measure: babies must love their parents, and parents must love their babies, or else the babies won’t survive.

Non-mammal animals, however… I have no idea!

Yes, absolutely they do.

Yes.

I agree with @nicobanks…and actually hadn’t even quite thought of it like that before I read their answer. I just want to add one thing: I think birds feel love, too. They mate for life, they live in flocks at least part of the year. In my own personal experience, my parakeet treated strangers like strangers but would jump to the front of his cage singing when I came into the room, would preen me when I had him out, waited for me before he passed on..

We’re not so different from other animals. We’ve all got the same parts, just in slightly different form. While all animals exhibit different strengths, I don’t think something as basic and fundamental as emotion can in any way be only human.

I absolutely know that Spoony, my cat, loves me. She shows me every day in so many ways. But for the doubting Thomas types out that, explain this picture. The dog almost starved staying by the master’s grave.

I think they do. I had been on holiday for a few weeks and went back to work. On my first day off, my cat followed my around. Everytime I sat down, he was there, on my knee. I think he was missing me being around.

I believe dogs and cats are probably as close to unconditional love as humans will ever be able to experience on this earthly plane of existence.