"Animals cannot love, due to the fact that they do not share our forms of life, their own form of life being their own, and extremely limited in our view."
These are in error.
The only way to determine fact is through direct observation. And although their form of life is different than ours, animals do share many inherited biological and genetic mechanisms with humans. In fact, the only thing that truly makes us unique and separate from other higher animals is our larger capacity for memory and learning. Neither of these have anything to do with love.
Scientists just started doing research recently on brain mapping dogs for the first time in a attempt to determine whether the emotions in dogs are at all similar to the emotions in people. So far, although there is far less higher brain functions in dogs, for obvious reasons, the way in which the brain produces and reacts to feelings of love and caring are almost identical to the active geography of the human brain when the emotions of love and caring are triggered. They expect to find similar results in other animals with similar brain structures such as monkeys, cats, and pigs.
The research is just getting started, but I think it's extremely premature to suggest that animals are not capable of the same emotional growth as humans, even if they do not express these feelings in the same way. Love does not occur in the intelligence, or rather, the intelligence producing part of the brain. It is produced in an evolutionary primitive part of the brain that is shared with a number of different species.
Whether we share similarities between biology is not beside the point if that in examining those similarities, it is also revealed that we share similar cognitive functions as a result. Just how closely related is the cerebral programming of a higher primate to that of a lower primate, a canine, or a feline? Or even a bird? One can only determine this through direct observation of the elements involved. Not by philosophizing.
None of this, however, in any way invalidates the theory of humans and other animals sharing identical or nearly identical neuro-synaptic chemical mechanisms in our brains - especially since the initial results of the preliminary testing is so positive. And it's not that far fetch seeing as how we share so much of our genetic makeup and protein sequences with our fellow species on this planet.
As for me, when I'm lying on the bed and my cats come over and start purring in my ear and kneading my stomach, I know that it is because they love me. I don't need to wait for the study to be concluded. If love was just something humans use to declare themselves a "higher animal" than other animals, then how do we explain how other animals are also capable of love? I believe love is something we cannot pin down to just one thing for it can be found in almost everything. Now, this is me philosophizing.
