Can pets read human emotions?

I think that many animals can sense our emotions, and different animals just react to things differently. It is well-known that dogs, horses, and other animals will sense our fear, and act accordingly.
Cats, on the other hand, can be more subtle in showing their frustration with us sometimes.
We had a beautiful Persian cat that a friend gave us because the cat did not like either him or his girlfriend at all.
When he was at our house, and had stayed the night; he discovered that Byron had used his new tennis shoes as a place to do all of his little cat chores.
Since Byron always used the litter box and had never done that to anyone else who happened to be visiting one of my kids and spent the night; we were preyy sure that Byron was simply showing his dislike for Rodney by messing in his tennis shoes.