raz Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 I still can't even bring myself to give a dog a "human name" they have to be other names. What's wrong with calling your dog something like Frank? Imagine what your neighbours would think if you yelled out Come inside now Frank or you're not getting any kibble! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelpiekaye Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 No, that was an absolute A$$HOLE who treats an animal like a "thing" - every dog has it's own personality, not human - canine - and deserves it's own name. What a dogs name is has nothing to do with how it is treated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poodlemum Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 No, that was an absolute A$$HOLE who treats an animal like a "thing" - every dog has it's own personality, not human - canine - and deserves it's own name. What a dogs name is has nothing to do with how it is treated. I don't quite agree - if you think a dog doesn't even deserve it's own unique name, then I believe that that shows that the dogs is of no value to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelpiekaye Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 No, that was an absolute A$$HOLE who treats an animal like a "thing" - every dog has it's own personality, not human - canine - and deserves it's own name. What a dogs name is has nothing to do with how it is treated. I don't quite agree - if you think a dog doesn't even deserve it's own unique name, then I believe that that shows that the dogs is of no value to you. The dog "Dog" dosnt know the dog before him or her was called "Dog". The man that is taking his dog to dog training is putting value in his dog called "Dog". It shows me that the man, shall we call him "Man" either dosnt have much imagination or has a dry sense of humour. It might worry you but it sure as hell dosnt worry the dog and if you think it does well thats probably Anthropomorphism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WoofnHoof Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 I'm a bit behind in the discussion here but IMO the main problem with anthropomorphism is not the association of certain emotional states because many of these are probably quite accurate (in as much as anyone can really tell) it's more the attribution of the human characteristic of complex reasoning which tends to cause problems in human/animal interactions. A lot of the 'he knows he did the wrong thing' is reliant upon a more complex reasoning process than most mammals are capable of and that is the part many people have trouble with, it's easy for us to make conclusions based on a few clues because of our ability to organsie our thoughts and apply timeframes and contexts etc, this is quite often well beyond what an animal is capable of and people can forget that it is our complex reasoning which is really the only thing that is significantly different about us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nekhbet Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 (edited) No, that was an absolute A$$HOLE who treats an animal like a "thing" - every dog has it's own personality, not human - canine - and deserves it's own name. Guess what deary ... it's a dog. It did get it's own name, it's name was 'Dog' and thats what he called it. The dog was happy and extremely well looked after, and I really mean that. His last dog died from old age and he teared up talking about it - does that sound like some uncaring person to you? I think someone else is the a-hole for such a rediculous comment, not this bloke. Names are a human concept, what you speak of is true anthromorphisation. Sorry but no dog 'deserves' its own name, name is simply a conditioned word association for your animal, nothing more. Your priority in life is to ensure the canine has the requirements for a healthy happy life provided, not that you toss endlessly for hours deciding on what name suits its 'personality' which frankly is subjective. You can say your dog is cute, adorable, spritely etc and I can see that same dog as annoying, uncontrolled and frankly needing a good peg down. So you call it one think and I call it another. And I think you totally miss the point with this man. He did what he did because the dogs needs were the priority, not their own personal ones. Why spend time faffing over a name when the dog doesnt care. The kid always remembers the name and it's more important to spend time training and socialising then it is stuffing about with really, unimportnt things. I break all the rules. Mine eat off my fork, sleep on the bed, lay around on the lounge, get presents, have parties, wear clothes, refer to ourselves and "mummy and daddy". I call them my babies, kiss and cuddle them.and couldn't give two shits what name people like to call it. I love them and they are all, happy and healthy. I dont believe in hard and fast rules IF the dogs are still being provided for on their canine level and you have provided enough structure in the dogs lives that they are well adjusted and social. I tell all my clients the same thing - as long as the dog is not a spoiled nervous wreck of an animal and your behaviour is not drivng the dog to bad behaviours do what you want! Why else would we get a dog in the first place if not to have a companion?! All my dogs can eat off forks, my mum loves watching them delcately taking food off the tines especially the Dogue. I call myself Mumma to diesel because he's associated that word with me, and daddy with my OH. Just happened like that and if I say 'get daddy' they'll jump on his bed. I do understand though that the dont see us as parents, that we're not parents and it's simply a word association with a behavour from our perspective that makes them recognise 'mumma' and 'daddy'. Nothing more. My mum is worst though she loves attributing human emotions to my lot, especially when the dogs pull behaviours to try and get their own ways with her and she does the 'awwww ok just have a little off my plate' or 'OK have another pat' .... and her own pomeranian rules the roost entirely with an aggressive streak. Which she justifies. Each to their own. Edited January 31, 2011 by Nekhbet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 Guess what deary ... it's a dog. It did get it's own name, it's name was 'Dog' and thats what he called it. The dog was happy and extremely well looked after, and I really mean that. I have an old neighbour who has had three dogs one at a time. The Same breed and she always gives them the same name. She has loved each one of them but she's attached to the name - they're not aware they were given the name of the preceding dog and she's well aware that each dog has had an individual personality but she names the dog to suit herself. I cant see the problem with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bundyburger Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 No, that was an absolute A$HOLE who treats an animal like a "thing" - every dog has it's own personality, not human - canine - and deserves it's own name. Why? The dog certainly doesn't care! That he has a name is important, what that name is is purely for our benefit only. Exactly Haven.. PM, if the dog was called "Deefer" would you still have a problem with it? My dog answers to nearly *everything* we call him including his name.. so I really don't think he cares as long as he gets love! I agree that the names are for our benefits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mita Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 I'm a bit behind in the discussion here but IMO the main problem with anthropomorphism is not the association of certain emotional states because many of these are probably quite accurate (in as much as anyone can really tell) it's more the attribution of the human characteristic of complex reasoning which tends to cause problems in human/animal interactions. A lot of the 'he knows he did the wrong thing' is reliant upon a more complex reasoning process than most mammals are capable of and that is the part many people have trouble with, it's easy for us to make conclusions based on a few clues because of our ability to organsie our thoughts and apply timeframes and contexts etc, this is quite often well beyond what an animal is capable of and people can forget that it is our complex reasoning which is really the only thing that is significantly different about us. Yes, complex reasoning is a possibility in humans. It develops (given the person has no adverse condition & has an environment for learning). So infants & young children are still less able in that department. Curiously, the same problem you've described re dogs, can apply here. Adult humans having unrealistic expectations of how littlies can think & control their own behaviour. That misconception is actually behind a lot of physical abuse of young children. Stanley Coren, the canine researcher, puts dogs' 'intelligence' on a par with 2-year old humans. (In a paper called 'How Dogs Think;, American Psychological Association 117th Annual Convention). Certainly, dogs learn by imitation, the same as the very early human stage of learning. I think all this needs a lot of thinking through, tho'...like, it hinges on exactly what is 'intelligence'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
persephone Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 (edited) Names! Clients once had 3 dogs.. at the same time..all black B/C X types.. all called the same thing.. but different Zero Zip Zilch We have had a "Bitch" a "Greydog" and an "Oi " We currently have a young dog using the name of one who died last year...she doesn't know/care. Edited January 31, 2011 by persephone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nekhbet Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 We have had a "Bitch" a "Greydog" and an "Oi " We currently have a young dog using the name of one who died last year...she doesn't know/care. Oh PERS how COULD you *passes smelling salts to poodlemum* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erny Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 (edited) No, that was an absolute A$$HOLE who treats an animal like a "thing" - every dog has it's own personality, not human - canine - and deserves it's own name. Met a kid once in a Country Town when I was travelling with my sister from somewhere to somewhere else, many years ago. He had two lovely, wonderfully behaved dogs with him and he clearly loved his dogs - to look at them together, the bond he shared with them was almost tangible. His dogs' names where "Come" and "Here". I actually think "Dog" is a nice name - it represents (to me) all things honourable, honest and loyal. Edited February 1, 2011 by Erny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizT Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 I think there is a difference between treating your dog like a child and giving it presents and all that weird behaviour and using words to describe its behaviour. Like I know for a fact, when my dog is in a good mood, now I know it is wrong to use the word 'mood' here, but, there really isn't any other way to describe animal behaviour, so we use words that we can associate with the dog's behaviour. He gets excited for example, when it is time for his run, this is obvious in his behaviour. I don't think that comes under the ambit of anthropomorphism. I agree...I mean our cats don't speak "dog" to the dogs, they speak "cat". They walk up and "Meow" because that is their language. Since we don't really know dog in any clear understandable interpretation we use our own language. Some human lanugages don't even have words to explain certain things and often words are taken from a different language and used. I must admit I'm a bit silly about words I use for my dogs. I use German words for our GSD that I don't use for the Cavaliers. Ridiculous I know but I grew up with Austrian parents and adopted these words for my GSD as these were the words my parents used. I will use the german word for bed/your place for the GSD but have only ever used the word bed for the Cavaliers. We'll they are English after all. My Aussie bred OH thinks it's incredibly funny that I use Geman words for the German Shepherd. I think it's just a force of habit..I certainly didn't rush out and learn Flemish for the Schipperke! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizT Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 No, that was an absolute A$$HOLE who treats an animal like a "thing" - every dog has it's own personality, not human - canine - and deserves it's own name. Met a kid once in a Country Town when I was travelling with my sister from somewhere to somewhere else, many years ago. He had two lovely, wonderfully behaved dogs with him and he clearly loved his dogs - to look at them together, the bond he shared with them was almost tangible. His dogs' names where "Come" and "Here". I actually think "Dog" is a nice name - it represents (to me) all things honourable, honest and loyal. Surely we have all met a D'fer!! I've known a couple. Remember "Pig" in Babe! "That'll do Pig...that'll do." My baby Cavalier is called "Clover". It was her newborn nickname and I had no intention of keeping her when she was given that 'tag'. As a newborn her markings resembled a clover leaf from the top and someone I sent a litter photo to said she like the one with the "Clover leaf" marking. So Clover became her nickname. When I decided to keep her we went through a huge list of names for her but it was too late. Clover had stuck and it suited her somehow. I really love the name Clover now...it has LOVE in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niques Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 I contemplated Dog for James for the Footrot Flats reference. Sadly, vetoed :D I don't quite agree - if you think a dog doesn't even deserve it's own unique name, then I believe that that shows that the dogs is of no value to you. Poodlemum, humans used to commonly reuse the names of dead children on subsequent births - clearly that indicates that children held no value to their parents Hell, the dog doesn't even know it's his "name" - he just knows he's meant to show some response to it. As for why we anthropomorphise...I wasn't aware we had any other point of reference with which to judge the world. Why some people go to such extremes with it is a whole other psychological kettle of fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 (edited) I must admit I'm a bit silly about words I use for my dogs. I use German words for our GSD that I don't use for the Cavaliers. Ridiculous I know but I grew up with Austrian parents and adopted these words for my GSD as these were the words my parents used. I dont think that's silly - a friend of mine grew up with 3 languages so when he has discussions with his family, they slip in and out of lingos depending on what they are talking about so if they talk about bread or cheese one minute it's in french, wine the next it's in Italian and hamburgers the next it's in English (really simplistic examples but I think you'll understand what I'm talking about). He said he just cant help it. A linguistics expert could probably put a name on that...in any language Edited February 1, 2011 by raz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelpiekaye Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 We have had a "Bitch" a "Greydog" and an "Oi " We currently have a young dog using the name of one who died last year...she doesn't know/care. :D Oh PERS how COULD you *passes smelling salts to poodlemum* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruthless Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Staffys are people! I didn't take this pic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruthless Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Those who don't anthropomorphise: do you talk to your dogs? I have been known to whisper "Daddy's an asshole" to them on occasions And she did that look - you know the guilty "I did something wrong" look yesterday when i took a bit long to release her to eat her breakfast. Like she thinks that works too. She hadn't done anything wrong at all. She'd done really well waiting for me to give her permission to eat. But she'd all hunched up with her ears all down and those big round eyes... :D I had a dog staying with me for a bit and she broke into the pantry one day and tried to eat arborio rice. I swear to god one of my dogs came and warned me about it. It was hilarious. She really looked like she was dobbing on the 'intruder' Ivan was such a dobber. Every time he barked I knew it was because Chopper and Angel were up to no good. I miss him. He was a great early warning system Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erny Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Those who don't anthropomorphise: do you talk to your dogs? I have been known to whisper "Daddy's an asshole" to them on occasions And :D at the picture you put up. Very funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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