Recently, a friend of mine asserted that dogs don’t have souls. Inasmuch as I nearly always agree with her, I found it surprising that we were in opposing camps on this particular subject.

Because I respect her opinion, I found myself questioning my own belief system somewhat more than usual. Is it possible, I asked myself, to have four legs, a tail, fleas and a soul? While I’m not absolutely certain what souls are, I finally decided that if they are what I think they are, dogs definitely have them.

To begin with, a soul, to me, is the thing within us that urges us to behave as decently as possible, as if God, Himself, were actually paying attention. It is similar, I think, to a conscience, but with one important distinction: The soul, I believe, points us in the right direction, while the conscience kicks in with a vengeance once we break the Golden Rule or one of the Commandments. In short, one provides guidance, the other doles out remorse.

Basically, there seems to be one reason why people such as my friend are convinced that dogs lack souls. Namely, when a canine does something terrific, it gets ascribed to instinct. If an animal performs an act of courage and self-sacrifice, he doesn’t get the same credit as a human being because it’s presumed he hasn’t acted out of free will. Without the ability to decide not to do something heroic, without the ability to consciously weigh the risks inherent in the act, we’re told that the creature is merely acting out of blind obedience to its animal instinct. To which I say, with all due respect, hooey!

Even when a dog runs into a burning building, his derring-do is usually dismissed with condescension. After all, we’re lectured, dogs are pack animals; it’s bred into them to be subservient to the pack leader. Still, even that doesn’t begin to explain why dogs risk death to rescue babies; after all, even a cocker spaniel knows that a squalling infant is not some alpha male.

Neither does instinct, alone, explain why dogs have been known to leap into raging rivers to rescue perfect strangers. Also, if some dogs are not to receive full credit because all of their marvelous qualities are inbred, merely a result of their heredity, how do you explain that not every dog will perform similar acts of heroism?

I sincerely believe that the average dog has more virtues than the average person. For one thing, they are far less likely to bite the hand that feeds them than the typical person. Consider the fact if you share your home with a stray dog, you will have a devoted companion for life. However, the typical welfare recipient is not only ungrateful, but is likely to riot if he decides you haven’t given him enough. He will not only bite your hand, but tip over your car, vandalize your store, burn down your house and call you names.

You never see a pack of dogs carrying signs calling for the killing of cops or even mailmen. You never see them marching and chanting that the lives of poodles or schnauzers matter, but not the lives of collies and boxers, Labradors and Chihuahuas.

According to, I believe, Navajo legend, when God decided to separate human beings from the other animals by creating an abyss between them, dogs at the very last second leaped across the divide to take their rightful place beside us.

It seems to me that if an entire species is, by its very nature, warm-hearted, trustworthy, loyal and brave, one would be hard-pressed to maintain that, in spite of all those virtues, they are soul-less.

When I see the brutality that human beings are capable of, the madness that so often inflames them, the fact that the murder and rape even of little children is not uncommon, I question why God doesn’t simply pull the plug on the human race, writing us off as a failed experiment.

At such times, I wonder if the only reason He hesitates is because He realizes that the dogs would miss us.

In the end, the real question, so far as I can see, isn’t whether or not dogs have souls, but whether people do.