Well-I “think” it depends on how we define “thinking”. IMO thought can only occur through a language.
The better term to use then is cognition. For that matter, not all human cognition takes the form of “internal language.” Fact is, there’s a good chance only a small percentage of it does.
For example, the ability to make inferences from only partial data. Dogs do that regularly.
And on this?
But there’s no evidence to prove the dog is sad, lonely, and or misses his owner.
Yes there is evidence that that is what is happening.
See, there is an entire terrain of studies out there dedicated to examining cognition in dogs, and also emotional structures.
Unless you actually KNOW that data, you’re just winging it on what are probably dated assumptions.
===
=-==
The Hormone That Bonds Humans to Dogs
The hormone oxytocin has evolved into playing a major role in bringing humans and dogs together
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hormone-that-bonds-humans-to-dogs-1442503702
Around the time of birth, female mammals release oxytocin in some brain regions, and the hormone allows them to register and recall their offspring’s smell, appearance or voice. Oxytocin rewards such maternal behavior with feelings of well-being.
More oxytocin innovations emerged. In the eons since mammals proliferated on earth, some primate and rodent species independently evolved pair-bonding (that is, sexual and/or social monogamy). In the brain, oxytocin is heavily involved in this as well. And as primates developed complex you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch yours relations, evolution adapted oxytocin to mediate the formation of trust and altruistic feelings toward fellow members of one’s group.
So evolution’s oxytocin R&D team has filed one compelling new patent after another. But something truly striking occurred sometime in the past 50,000 years (which is to say, over the last 0.01% of the time during which oxytocin has existed). During that evolutionary blink of an eye, humans embarked on something new, with oxytocin again in a leading role: the domestication of wolves.
How did this occur? Reporting in the journal Science, Miho Nagasawa of Azabu University in Japan and colleagues observed that modern dogs and their owners secrete oxytocin when they interact with each other. Remarkably, dogs who gaze the most at their humans during interactions had the biggest oxytocin rise—as did their humans.
The scientists then spritzed oxytocin (or saline, as a control treatment) up the dogs’ noses. The oxytocin caused female dogs to gaze more at their humans…whose own oxytocin levels rose as a result. All of this only affected dogs and their owners. Hand-reared wolves and their owners didn’t react in the same way to the treatment, and dogs administered oxytocin didn’t gaze any longer at humans who weren’t familiar to them. In other words, dog and human brains seem to have evolved at lightning speed to co-opt oxytocin for bonding between our species.
Even cooler is this teaching of a new trick to an old hormone—showing how evolution is a tinkerer, not an inventor, improvising with whatever is handy. Once humans and wolves started down this strange path together, their brains would never be the same.
.
