The Number One Scourge Affecting Dogs Today
Our dogs are very precious to us. We constantly seek out information to protect them from bad things and make their lives better: more enriched, more joyful, more complex, and more...well, dog-ish. Within the confines of our very human world, we want our dogs to have the best and most fulfilled lives we can provide.
So, when we see the latest in our news feed with a tantalizing headline about something terrible affecting or afflicting dogs, we just can’t resist clicking to find out what we (or, much more deliciously, our neighbours) might be doing wrong. Is it something in their food? Is it something about their collars? Does walking on the right side of us predispose them to seizures or salmonellosis? We want to know, really know, the full catalogue of what might harm our dogs, and we want to know it, now. And of course, in our media-soaked world, we have an endless list of headlines to click on. The dog world has no shortage of people who speak with authority.
Bad News: Bad News?
Although this information-seeking behaviour is normal, our very human tendency to seek out all the bad news headlines can lead, unintentionally, to real bad news, for our dogs.
It unfolds something like this. A dog expert speaking persuasively or, heck, just loudly says there is a new scourge affecting dogs. For the sake of the story, let’s go with the absolutely made-up scourge of how terrible it is to deny dogs their daily banana. I could, with authority, write a blog about bananas being required, daily, for dogs to stay healthy. Dogs need bananas for their special mix of B6 and magnesyphan, didn’t you know? Oh my god, you didn’t know? Without their daily banana, dogs might suffer amoebiosis of the kidney.
It’s not just nutrition advice, either: scourges are regularly reported about all things dog-related. Dangers to our dogs’ behavioural wellness can be found, literally, around every corner, if we listen to the pundits. Don’t believe me? Well, my spaniel Soleil just howled along with some music. If my ‘daily banana’ story didn’t get the traffic I wanted, I could just as easily write about how ‘allowing’ her to howl was breaking down the narrative ganglian pathways between the entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus, causing a dystopian anti-juncture of the child-wolf within her.
“Only terrible and careless people ‘let’ their dogs howl, for crying out lou...uh, for Pete’s sake!”
Were I to publish my staunch polemic on the dangers of howling, it would likely be the case that I believe that I am right. I could convince myself easily of this, with some search engine research: I googled “gut-amygdala axis” to come up with some of the language to use in this blog. It wouldn’t be a terrific leap for me to dive a bit deeper into subjects I don’t fully understand (and without specialized training, can’t really understand) if I didn’t particularly like the howling, and come up with a very reasonable sounding reason to punish Soleil for howling or punish my spouse for triggering it. Now, don’t get me wrong: if I truly disliked Soleil’s howling, I’d set things up so Soleil got her howls on when I wasn’t nearby, or pop earplugs in to save myself the pain of it all. It’s fine to change things up to make everyone happy. It’s what dog trainers do.
You might be rolling your eyes hard and fast to the blue sky above, wondering what in the heck I’m going on about. To that, I say: if you don’t think people would pay attention to that (granted: hilarious) bit of mumbo-jumbo, the anthropologist in me wants to hear more about your fascinating and unique lived experience. Because that, my eye-rolling friend, is exactly the kind of thing that spreads through the dog world like some kind of technicolour wildfire. When you see articles about preventing puppies from getting good socialization, or preventing dogs from playing with other dogs, or preventing dogs from sniffing on walks, or preventing dogs from experiencing ‘arousal’ or ‘frustration’ at all, or preventing dogs from expressing huge swaths of their normal behavioural repertoire, then...well, that’s all howling along to music, you see? Those are made-up scourges, no matter how eloquently or urgently spoken; no matter how the author tosses in processes neurological; no matter how many inner wolf-children are called.
The Real #1 Scourge
Considering you clicked on a title about the number one scourge affecting dogs today, you are most likely wanting me to get to that particular point: what is the number one scourge, then? I mean, outside of the obvious, and truly important, things like breeding for body types which are inherently unhealthy or breeding for brains which are inherently fearful, breeding more dogs than there exist good, waiting homes, and the use of painful dog training devices...if we set that stuff aside, what is the number one scourge? Well, here is my answer.
The number one scourge affecting dogs today is, well, scourges.
When you combine our natural human desire to make our dogs’ lives better by seeking anything and everything that may harm them and the absolute lack of regulation of professional dog behavioural practice, you get a platform for people who, however unknowingly, reduce dogs’ welfare by reducing dogs’ opportunities to find joy.
The more aware we are of our own tendencies to seek out negative information, the less needless, damaging negativity we’ll introduce into our dogs’ lives. And that, my friends, is worth sharing a banana (or a howl) about.