Anna has a lot of friends. When we were in OB school and she was a complete spaz, her one good friend was Chewy, a shihzu...she would see him and be a whole new dog!

She has her cousins, which I can mention by name and she gets all excited, and she interacts with them all differently, like she knows their personalities and how to act around each one. She also does the same with people, especially my bffs little ones.

Any way you look at it, they have relationships--owner, family, acquaintance, so why wouldn't friendship be included?

Why not write a Letter to the Editor and mention this?

The Hooligans have formed friendships with each other (not all of them). Currently Mac and Faith are close friends as are Slider and his bouncing baby boy, Bruiser. The odd thing is that Mac used to be a loner ... he always ignored the other dogs. I had three elderly guys that died within a 9 month span and when Honey, the last one died, Mac moped around, wouldn't play, just went out, pottied and laid down. After watching this for a while I got Faith and he immediately became an entirely new dog again ... they pal around together all the time.

Gayle you kinda mention this in your post, but I was thinking about this again, and if they can mourn, how can they not develop friendships?

I agree. I've seen too many dogs mourn to know that it doesn't happen and I always ASSUMED they formed friendships, I never questioned it, or even thought about it, until I read this thread.

When my stepfather died, my Mom's JR watched for him every day. If a truck went by the house she ran to the door looking.

It took months before she gave up on him coming home. I think dogs do have friendships, with dogs, other animals and people.