>Otherwise, we could just as correctly say that when we look at dog we are seeing the sun or the overhead florescent bulbs; that's where the photons came from
No, they didn't. The energy came from the sun, however the photons which are collected in your retina to form the image of a dog were emitted from the dog itself. "Reflection" is just the stimulation of photon emission via radiation.
You're gesturing at an unconvincing objection: that there is no difference between reflection and emission because there is a sense in which light passing through matter is continuously being absorbed and re-emitted. (I say "gesturing" because you don't actually know the physics; it is completely different than either stimulated emission or the photoelectric effect, which you could tell by reading the Wikipedia articles.) Explaining why this objection is boring and unconvincing would ultimately be a long discussion in the philosophy of science ("how can we keep using folk terminology that presumes a sharp devision between two concepts when a theory of physics suggests they are actually just part of a continuum?"), but you can get a sense of that by noticing that emission generally involves a change in the frequency of light while reflection does not.
No, they didn't. The energy came from the sun, however the photons which are collected in your retina to form the image of a dog were emitted from the dog itself. "Reflection" is just the stimulation of photon emission via radiation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect