#6 Even Babies Are Given Rules
Highfives Insights #5: Anthropomorphism - the attribution of human characteristics or behaviours to a god, animal, or object.
There's been a huge rise in anthropomorphism during the past century. Dogs in particular went from being an outdoor alarm system to being viewed as the family baby.
I absolutely have nothing against treating a dog like a member of the family, but here's the punchline... We honestly do not treat our dogs like how we would treat other humans.
Don't believe me? Just answer these questions...
- Would you give complete freedom to a 3 year old?
- Would you put up with a family member stealing your food off your plate?
- Would you reward your child with what he wants if he was pulling a screaming fit in public?
- If someone constantly violated your personal space, would you put up with it?
- What would you do if you were in a toxic relationship with an overly controlling person?
- How long would you allow or excuse bratty behaviour from another human being?
- Do we let little kids make their own decisions? Do we leave children unsupervised? Don’t we put newborns in cribs? Aren’t kids expected to sit still for hours in a classroom while learning?
Almost all of us would not put up with any of the behaviour from other people that we allow on a daily basis from our dogs. Many of us even encourage these behaviours to go on and on in the relationship with our 'fur babies'. And because of that, we are actually treating our dogs as LESS than human. Any normal human being would expect to receive a certain level of respect, boundaries, trust, and sociability from other humans. Our dogs want the same thing from us.
We also have the wrong expectations of our dogs… A common complaint I hear is that a 4 month old puppy is digging holes in the backyard. Frankly a puppy that young should be still heavily supervised!
Any dog or person who has been taught to follow structured rules will know how to behave properly and control themselves in public, in private, in social atmospheres, in stressful situations, and in any other environment.
By withholding rules from our dogs, we are creating creatures who don't know where they belong. Creatures who are lost, unsure of their identity. They aren't being viewed as a dog and they aren't being treated as a human.
The truth is we as human beings sometimes don't know any better unless we've been taught boundaries. Once again, same thing goes for our dogs. Even human babies are given boundaries for safety purposes until they are of age to begin making decisions and being responsible for their actions.
Ironic enough, the excuses we make for our dogs' unwanted behaviours sometimes go along the lines of “well, dogs aren’t people so those doggy behaviours should be expected”. And there we hit the nail on the head… Dogs aren’t people. Therefore we should examine our perspective and the ways we are confusing them. By respecting the needs of our dogs and treating them properly, we will honour their true being.
No train no gain!
Jenna