Fully agree. We tend to anthropomorphize all animals to be like humans. They aren't humans. They do not communicate like humans.** They do not think like humans. Meaning they will not have a conception of "love" like humans. I'll note that a lot of different human cultures have different concepts of love, so we can hardly expect that all dog races will have the same concept of love as middle class Americans.

**I saw a super interesting article about how modern technology and more importantly modern attitudes have taught us to rethink our concept of "speech." Elephants don't have vocal cords like we do. They hear in different ranges and obviously weigh a LOT more. So they use vibrations and low frequencies that they can easily make to "talk" to each other, even over long distances. We don't know what they are saying, but hopefully we'll learn one day!

Regarding dogs I've learned heaps from my wife, who really studies this stuff. One example of many: Humans use their arms a lot to communicate. Dogs use their bodies. So when you stand square in a doorway and wave with your arms saying, "Aegon - come in and get dinner," what Aegon sees most is your body blocking the door. If Aegon understands "come" and "dinner" he'll be even more confused that you are telling him to come verbally while telling him to stay out physically. Stoopid hoomans. Turn your body so it is perpendicular to the doorway and you'll see the difference. Your body is "telling" your dog that the way is open.