WHY CAN'T DOGS BE DOGS AND PEOPLE BE PEOPLE?
The wicked witch of Wycombe paused to howl at the full moon before ripping another mouthful of flesh from the freshly killed rabbit. Lycanthropy — a temporary transformation of witch into wolf? Or perhaps a form of madness, wherein the patient imagines himself as a wolf and develops a growly voice and a depraved appetite for raw red meat. Unbelievable? A dog becoming a person? A person becoming a dog? Not necessarily. Many people treat their dogs as humans in furry suits. Some trainers fancy domestic dogs to be wolves and yet other trainers go the whole lycanthropic hog and imagine themselves as wolves inflicting wolfy-punishments to dominate dogs and convince them to tow the line.
Anthropomorphism
Consider Moose The Magnificent (name changed to protect the innocent): The Mastiff puppydog was just sooooo cute and cocked his head just like he was listening to every word that was said to him. The kids talked to him endlessly and told him numerous stories about Mowgli and green Italian ersatz turtles that thrived on pizza. Jane discussed more practical issues, such as household manners. She told Moose where she wanted him to eliminate, where she didn't want him to eliminate, what she wanted him to chew and what she didn't want him to chew. Even John would sit down and have lengthy discussions with Moose about soccer, tying flies, engine capacity, the finer aspects of aeronautical navigation and other male-bonding topics. John also informed Moose, he required absolute obedience at all times; he wanted Moose to always come when called, to sit instantaneously (with panache) and to remain obediently in down stays for the duration.
Certainly, Moose listened to everything his owners said. Unfortunately, he barely understood a single word. Moose's owners were being anthropomorphic — attributing human characteristics to the dog. Family Moose viewed their pup as a person in a furry suit.
Now, before I am accused of being a killjoy, I hasten to add, not all anthropomorphism is bad. I enjoy talking to my dogs — asking questions, sharing secrets, describing my day. I mean, they listen so well. On returning home from lecture trips, I used to have quite lengthy conversations with my Malamute, Phoenix, about flight delays, lost baggage, jet lag, and sorry hotels. It's good to vent a few grievances and get things off your chest. We also discussed education, health care, finances and politics. And ... she did seem to hang on to every single word. Certainly, dogs benefit greatly from the closeness and attention of human conversation and they no doubt glean a lot of what is going on from context, body language and the tone of our voices. However, a dog will only precisely understand the meaning of words that he has been taught (Come, Sit, Stay, etc.) or learned by himself (Dinner, Walkies, etc.). The rest of the words will translate only as Larsonian "Blah blah blah".
On occasions though, anthropomorphism backfires, causing both owner and dog to suffer. Many people attribute good human qualities to their dogs, especially the powers of human understanding and reasoning, and assume dogs understand more than they do. Often, people expect more from dogs than they are able to give. Dogs are expected to read our minds and understand household rules and regulations without education or explanation and people become frustrated and annoyed when the poor dog breaks these secret rules. “He knows its wrong!” “He misbehaved on purpose!” And often, the poor dog is punished for breaking rules that he didn’t even know existed.
We must explain household rules in a manner that the dog can understand. This means we must teach dogs the meaning of each word we use. We must teach dogs our language — ESL — English as a Second Language. This process is called training.
Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, when the dog-owner relationship starts to go awry, anthropomorphism tends to assume a negative hue — bad human characteristics are attributed to dogs. Dogs are frequently accused of being spiteful, vindictive and vicious. Rather than considering that our “poor learner” might actually have a poor teacher, many owners insist that the dog soiled the house because he was jealous and when punished, exacted his revenge by chewing the kitchen chair legs and when banished to the yard, he vindictively dug up her flowers and barked out of spite.
Assuming dogs have a human appetite for spite and revenge is a convenient excuse for the dog's obvious lack of elementary education — an advertisement that the owner neglected to teach the dog where to eliminate, what to chew, where to dig, when and for how long to bark, and when and upon whom to jump-up. It is conveniently simpler to blame the dog than train it. Personally I would never insult a dog by even suggesting it has fallen foul of these especially execrable and exclusively human foibles — spite, revenge and viciousness.
Whoah! So, a lot of you disagree. Of course we disagree. What else is new? But all of this is a moot point because none of us will ever know for certain what a dog is thinking, what are her motives, or why she does what she does. When I do meet the occasional person who insists that they know what a dog is thinking and feeling, I call her dog, cradle her head in my hands, slowly bring my forehead down to the dog’s and after a revealing mind-meld moment, I inform the person that the dog has told me, “No, she can’t read my mind.”
What we do know we know however, is what the dog did. And if for example the dog soiled the house, let's just housetrain the dog and then the owner will no longer be annoyed, the dog will no longer be punished and instead, he can be happily reintegrated into household living once more and will no longer be chewing, digging and barking during solitary confinement in the garden or basement. (Or, if you prefer your interpretation, the dog will no longer have any reason to exact revenge.) And once owner and newly-housetrained dog are living in harmony, then, and only then, would it be profitable to engage in moot debate regarding the differential etiology of housesoiling. Even so, it is still unlikely we'll reach agreement. Luckily though, this is not important because few owners are interested in the etiology of problems that no longer exist.
Hyperlupomorphism
Moose was becoming a bit of a pain following his headlong collision with adolescence. He would no longer willingly go outside for hours of solitary confinement. John thought Moose was being stubborn and so off they went to training classes. Jane was happy to go along as well because she thought some manners would help control Moose and stop him from rambunctiously jumping-up and mouthing her whenever she would visit him in the yard. The trainer said Moose was a dominant-aggressive dog, as evidenced by his urine marking in the house, his refusal to obey commands and his dominant paws-on posturing and mouthing. John and Jane were instructed how to reassume leadership via dominance-downs, stare-downs, scruff shakes, alpha-rollovers and hold-downs. Moose got fed up with the constant manhandling and physical abuse and eventually, both his tolerance and jaws snapped. And we can all write the rest of the story.
How on earth did this folly happen? Presumably, the lupomorphic reasoning assumes: 1. Dogs are descended from wolves and should therefore be treated like wolves; 2. Wolves are pack animals that have a linear dominance hierarchy with a pack leader (or alpha male) who calls all the shots and maintains control via physical dominance — Ha! I'd like to see you try and explain that one to a Jack Russell bitch; and 3. To learn its place, our best friend the domestic dog should similarly be physically dominated in a wolf-like manner, presumably because the “naturalness” of so-called wolfy-punishments makes it easier for the dog to comprehend.
Taken to this extreme, lupomorphic tendencies occasionally and bizarrely erupt into full-blown lycanthropy — whereby some trainers assume ersatz wolfiness to punish puppydogs in wolf-like fashion by stares, scruff-shakes and alpha-rollovers — transformation of trainer into wolf. Or perhaps, a form of madness? Do these people eat raw rabbit? Before long, trainers will be growling, jaw-wrestling, scruff-biting and urine-marking trees in a quest for the natural reprimand.
No! No! No! No! Nooo! Nonononononono!!! This is the cartoon version — soooo simplistic it even makes my twelve-year-old rescue dog laugh out loud. Heavens! It makes chewtoys chuckle. Now certainly... dogs are descended from wolves, but their behavior has numerous differences, especially in terms of interaction with people. Consequently, to extrapolate from a ludicrously simplified version of wolf-wolf interaction to dog-dog interaction is quite unfounded, but … to further extrapolate from wolf-wolf interaction to dog-human interaction is just plain silliness.
Like wolves, domestic dogs are social animals (and hence should not be socially isolated) and they have a hierarchical social system. However, the hierarchy is neither created by, nor necessarily maintained by physical domination, nor is it strictly linear. If anything, the hierarchy is created and enforced by psychological control during development, and the peace of the pack is maintained by the active appeasement rituals of lower-ranking individuals. In fact, the famous Cambridge and Berkeley zoologist, Dr. Thelma Rowell has suggested that the status quo of social groups is better termed a subordinance hierarchy — a much more precise and descriptive term.
Yes, most groups of male dogs generally have a surprisingly stable linear hierarchy, but females tend to show significant day-to-day variation and male-female interactions can be extremely unpredictable, with rank-reversals being the norm rather than the exception. Indeed, bitches have virtually rewritten canine hierarchical law with the First Bitch Amendment that states, “I have it and you don't!” Moreover, individual members of a domestic dog pack have special friendships, alliances and bodyguards. And truly confident TopDogs are more than willing to share and even allow underdogs and buddies prime access to bones and favored sleeping places. To say one alpha male rules the roost is an oversimplification to the point of ridicule. In fact, in most domestic canine social groups it is not a single male, but rather a group of females that decide what's what.
Like wolves, dogs do need a leader — but not a dictator who physical dominates, frightens and hurts. And certainly not a human fool who tries to imitate wolves. To allow myself some anthropomorphic license, most dogs are probably howling with laughter at the pathetic wolf-impersonations by their owners. (Perhaps that's why dogs howl?) Indeed, it would all be so laughable, if the consequences were not so dire — so sad and so serious. This silliness is used as an excuse to make dogs’ lives a misery — an excuse to treat our best friend like our worst enemy. Yes, dogs must be taught to show compliance to all family members, but to suggest novice owners physically manhandle and frighten their dogs is both inane and inhumane. And how exactly are children meant to gain respect from the dog? By physically pushing and pulling it around? The very thought is as potentially dangerous as it is stupid. For goodness sake, let's wake up and smell the coffee! Or, wake up and smell the urine, if you're still bordering on virtual lycanthropy.
Cynomorphic Commonsense
Dogs need a leader — a teacher, who will firstly teach them what we want them to do, secondly, motivate them to want to do what we want them to do, and thirdly, gently yet insistently enforce domestic rules. Perhaps “educator” is a better term. Dogs are dogs; they are neither human nor lupine, so why don't we just treat them like dogs — to try to understand and respect their doggy ways and at the same time, teach them to understand and respect ours. Furthermore, we are human; we are neither lupine or canine, so why don't we act like the intelligent folk we are meant to be and teach dogs what is expected? If we want dogs to like people, let's socialize them. If we want dogs to have soft mouths, let's teach bite inhibition. If we don't want dogs to mouth or jump up, let's teach "Off" and "Sit". And if we want dogs to adhere to house rules, let's teach them, rather can keeping them a secret.
This article was based on Dr. Dunbar's monthly Behavior column in the March 1992 issue of the American Kennel Gazette. Reprinted with permission of the author and The American Kennel Club.
