Do Animals Have Feelings and Emotions?

Via Jonathan Moreau on flickr

Photo: Jonathan Moreau on flickr


 
In Buddhism, it is said that all sentient beings are ones who can perceive and feel, which raises the question whether animals are conscious and experience feelings and emotions like we do. For those of us with pets, like cats or dogs, it may be easy to see that these types of animals experience similar emotions to us like happiness, sadness and even jealousy and pain. However, since most of us haven’t grown up with farm animals (the kind most likely raised for the meat industry), it’s understandable that we might not have considered whether these animals are also capable of exhibiting emotions.
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