My Dog Brenner

October 10, 2009 at 6:46 am (animals, anthropomorphizing, critical thinking, critical though, dogs, free thinker, logical thinker, pet industry, pets, rational, rational thinker, science, scientific, scientific data, scientific evidence, skeptic, skepticism, Uncategorized)

Look at that face. Is that not an adorable little face? Who couldn’t be sucked in by that little fuzzy ball of cuteness?

I’ve talked previously about anthropomorphizing my car. Today I’m going to talk about the tendency people have to anthropomorphize our animal companions.

The pet industry is a 45 BILLION dollar a year industry. We spend bucket loads of cash on our animals. We buy everything from designer toys to stimulate their minds to designer foods in hopes of helping them to live longer.

I agree that we should be spending a little extra to help our companions be healthy and happy. They give us so much in return and ask so little. Just a warm lap, a place at our feet and a good belly rub.

This is why I have such a hard time being objective about certain aspects of pet care. I understand that breeds like Chinese Crested (seen below) need a sweater in the winter and sunblock in the summer. It protects a delicate creature from elements that its little body cannot defend from on its own.

What I don’t really understand is why someone would spend $200 on a dog dress (http://bit.ly/VfDOg) when you can get something that will keep your dog warm for under $20. I’ve never really understood why grown men and women spend money to dress up their dog beyond what is needed for the dog’s health.

There was a time when dogs were bred for certain purposes. Irish Wolfhounds were bred to kill wolves. Rat Terriers were bred to chase down and kill rats. Now we have novelties like the little guy on the left for no other purpose than to make us smile. It is something of a rarity to see a dog doing what it was bred to do. German Shepherds, Bloodhounds and Border Collies are a few of the exceptions that I can think of off the top of my head.

Thanks to the AKC, most dogs no longer even have the instinct to do what they were originally bred for. That has been bred out of many of them due to over-breeding and in-breeding. Form has become primary over function. Sure, with modernization there really isn’t as much of a need for a dog that kills rats as there used to be. It just saddens me to see a dog that has been bred for a specific purpose that no longer has any instinct to do its job.

Now it’s commonplace to see women walking around with dogs in their purses. An animal is NOT a fashion accessory.  This is the point where it becomes difficult for me to be objective. Our animal companions have been so humanized and bred to serve our purposes as friend and even baby substitute that it has become difficult for many people to be objective when it comes to how we treat our animals.

Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, has the right idea. We should be treating our animals in accordance with their behavior…not ours. A dog that is treated like a human can turn out to be a very unhappy animal with serious behavior issues. We should consider whether we are doing the animal and ourselves any favors in humanizing them.