Are We Catching Up To Dog"s?

[sidoney]

kelpie-i, my comment was a general one, not aimed at what you said.

I don't believe you can make a blanket statement about how individuals and groups think about and relate to dogs. Their motivations, their behaviour, and the consequences and implications of this.

There is not one way that people think about and relate to dogs. There are a number of ways. A lot of these are associated with social beliefs and changes in these.

Socially we are in a state of flux. Changes happen quite fast, blindingly fast compared to pre industrial revolution. Note here that I am talking about Australia as other societies are quite different.

(1) Overall, as a society, there is a desire to behave more humanely (less beating of children, no more capital punishment). An implication of this may be that people beat dogs less (overall) and desire to be pleasant to them. A negative outcome may be that some people are unwilling to give their animal any kind of discipline. They may adopt a laissez-faire approach to living with their dog. As we know, this leads to problems.

There is a move towards knowledge as being the domain of the "expert". A possible implication may be that people feel that they are not qualified to train their own dog, and should look elsewhere for help. (If they do.)

There is increasing specialisation. This may be part of a widening between different "schools" of training. Also these different "schools" may be affected by (1). Also people may train in their area of specialisation and look for the expert to help them in other areas.

There is an increasing distance between "public" and "private". Households become more insular, play moves off the streets, and even out of the yards. People live inside more and more, rather than outside. A couple of implications here. One is that there is less involvement in a neighbourhood community, there is less community gaze upon the household, and there is less interaction between neighbourhood members - people don't get involved in others' problems and people reject attempts to help as "interference". (Associated is the idea of responsibility as the domain of the individual and not the community.) Dogs are confined to their immediate environment, people spend less time with them, dogs are less socialised and more frustrated and bored. This causes problems. Because many people spend limited time with their animals, they have less opportunity to understand their animal, its body language, its likes and dislikes, and so on.

For many people, there is a lessening of the conceptual gap between "human" and "non-human/other". For others, dogs are still "other" or even "object". The same person can move between different conceptualisations. This different (and in some, changing) stances can lead to lack of consistency, lack of understanding, lack of discipline, lack of proper care, lack of consideration of the dog as a being with needs that go beyond food and water.

There are other social changes but I think I'll stop there. I also mentioned a couple in a previous post.

I've already stated that very few people avail themselves of the knowledge that exists, for whatever reason. This is statistical fact. It would be worthwhile finding out why this is.

I think it's fallacious to be looking back at the "good old days". A few examples of "good dog men" does not illustrate the general trend at the time. In the good old days, learning was largely associated with punishment, of humans and animals. This was not universal but was a general trend. There has been a great change in the understanding of learning, especially in humane roads to learning. There is also greater understanding of dog needs, behaviours, capabilities. This is a good thing. In some ways, it is easier to access this knowledge - books, DVDs, etc. Training clubs. In other ways, it's harder - less community networking overall. Greater insularity between households.

I think that the main issue is not what is known, but how many people take the trouble to do more than the minimum, and how to encourage people to find out and use what is known.

ETA: for those who trial their dogs, who are looking for performance, who are confused with motivation and so on - there is a greater expectation for performance from these people, particularly in areas in which the dog has NOT been bred to work. Earlier, dogs in the main did work for which they were bred, for which they had an instinct. Either they had it, and succeeded, or they did not, and were culled. Or else they were pets and no great expectation was put on them to walk just so, or to run as fast as they can over a set of obstacles, and so on. Now we want dogs to perform to their ultimate in artificial activities. And so there is a greater need to find the key to that animated, perfectly positioned "heel", or that fast and precise agility run, and those sorts of things. I don't know of any dog that has an inbred instinct and desire to do these things.

Another edit to add!: When things are not changing, then there is certainty - people have a belief that what they are doing is right because "that's the way it's done". When things are changing, then there is less certainty. Overall, people are not so sure of themselves or of their actions.

Edited September 4, 2007 by sidoney

[Kelpie-i]

Sidoney, my apologies if I misread. BTW, great post and I understand your sentiments.

[sidoney]

Ah no apologies needed, on rereading I can see that it seems as if it could have been aimed at your post. That wasn't my intent! So apologies from me also.