Java – Are Car objects and Dog objects used in real life programs

I mostly agree with you, but for fun I'll play Devil's Advocate. Explicit interfaces give a single place to look for an explicitly, formally specified contract, telling you what a type is supposed to do. This can be important when you're not the only developer on a project.

Furthermore, these explicit interfaces can be implemented more efficiently than duck typing. A virtual function call has barely more overhead than a normal function call, except that it can't be inlined. Duck typing has substantial overhead. C++-style structural typing (using templates) can generate huge amounts of object file bloat (since each instantiation is independent at the object file level) and doesn't work when you need polymorphism at runtime, not compile time.

Bottom line: I agree that Java-style inheritance and polymorphism can be a PITA and alternatives should be used more often, but it still has its advantages.

You are right in that objects consist of attributes, states, and behavior, if you define attributes to mean non-changing characteristics of an instance. As a matter of fact, it is important to make this distinction, because there exist objects which contain only attributes, (in your sense,) and no state; they are called immutable and they are very useful in programming.

This three-part definition is indeed represented in programming languages, for example using the final keyword in Java or the readonly keyword in C# to denote instance data which may not change throughout the lifetime of the instance.

I have to add, though, that non-changing instance data are usually not called attributes. We tend to speak of them as 'final' or 'readonly' or 'constant data' depending on which language we are using. The proper term for them would be 'invariants', but then this word is not frequently used in this sense; it is more often used for other things.