I wonder if it's possible that what is actually happening is that human ability to understand animals is not optimized towards "understanding objectively what t

I wonder if it's possible that what is actually happening is that human ability to understand animals is not optimized towards "understanding objectively what the animal is feeling" so much as it is optimized towards "understanding how to get them to do what we want." Assuming that a significant portion of our ability to understand animal behavior comes from evolutionary instinct or ancestral folklore, then it seems reasonable that the result might be highly pragmatic. For example, our ancestors may have only cared about identifying whether a dog was communicating sufficient submissiveness to indicate that it would follow orders. Whether that submissiveness came from love or fear of punishment may not have been important.