“…like, I don’t know, but it seems like she’s mad at me.” Was the last of a text conversation I had earlier this week with one of my toughest clients (not the dog, she was awesome!). “She’s not ‘mad’ but probably frustrated, which gets you frustrated, whuch makes her more frustrated – it snowballs. She needs exercise…” They recently moved, I can gaurantee the dog isn’t getting the exercise she needs. This owner was never ready when I showed up, called last minute for me to board her pup, and I’m pretty sure she probably only does 10% of what her dog needs, but is quick to assume her instinctual animal actually uses human emotion in her actions.
“…that’s a person humanizing the animal.” At the shelter, talking about feeding issues with the boss.
“I hate when people humanize dogs…”, an angry FB post (deservedly so) about a terrible way some people train dogs for human entertainment.
It’s been a recurring theme for me this week, humanizing a dog’s actions was even mentioned on a show I watch on Sat mornings.
We all love our dogs and believe they love us, love is a human emotion. But they are loyal to us because we provide their needs (food, shelter, leadership), love the animal instinct way.
All dogs are individuals, like us, so what another dog likes yours might not. Watch his body language and expressions when you do human things to your dog, if he seems uncomfortable STOP IT! I’ve heard most dogs don’t like being hugged, mine loves it, and a couple of dogs at the shelter seem comfortable with it. Here, all the kids come running up screaming “Willie, yea Willie” and give him big hugs, he gives them all kisses back. This makes it hard when I’m boarding/training dogs, as I often have to remind the kids to go slow with dogs other than Willie. And every once in awhile Willie doesn’t like it, when he shows he’s uncomfortable, I have no problem telling the kids to slow down or just moving on and not stopping for them – it’s what I owe him as his owner/leader: to give him what he needs in each different situation.
We love our dogs, and sometimes they don’t mind us being a little cruel to them by treating them like a human. So be human (we’re supposed to be the smart ones) and see what they are trying to tell us at all times, they’ll “love” you more!
There’s a much better respect toward each other in the animal world than we tend to have in the human world for each other. So every once in a while lets lighten up living by our human emotion (especially when animals are involved), and live more instinctually like animals.
After all, in the end we really are all just animals!
