Dogs are certainly not pretending in the way that a human actor is pretending. The question is whether or not dogs are really feeling an emotion. We know that humans can look as if they&#x27;re feeling a particular emotion without actually feeling it because we know that they can pretend (convincingly) to feel it. So we know that in general, it is possible for someone or something to give the appearance of feeling an emotion without actually feeling it. So, we know that the fact that a dog looks sad is not particularly good evidence that it is actually feeling sad.