Its all great and well written but dogs don't love us. They have no "feelings" of affection. All they want is your food, play, eat, sh**, be comfortable, and sleep. Yet, I do love my dog but I know he doesn't love me. We feel so alone sometimes that it relieves us to think that animals can "love" us.
Sorry for breaking the mood here but I know two people who would not even think twice about sacrificing a human life before an animal's so I'm a bit biased toward that kind of cuteness stuff.
While it's true that we can't ask dogs that we love them (which means we cannot say that they do), by asserting that dogs are stupid you have made an assertion here that goes against your premise (that we don't know, so we can't say). While I agree that we can't prove that they love in the way humans do, (it would be very strange to find that out) asserting that dogs have no social abilities is not true. In the wild, they form large packs with a complex dominance hierarchy; in captivity, the pack is often just a few beings (man, dog, cat, rat, etc.,) with the human most interested in the dog as the pack leader.
Therefore, though it would be strange to love a dog like a human, one cannot say that the dog does not form an attachment to the owner. I cannot provide anecdotes to support my claim, (I've never owned a dog) but there are quite a few here that can. On the point of those two whom you know, we'll never know until the time comes.
-Penguin
