Inside of a Dog_ What Dogs See, Smell, and Know - Alexandra Horowitz [120]
If we assume that we have reduced the animal factor to zero, we are in for some unhappy surprises. Dogs do not always behave just as we think they should. They may sit, lie down, and roll over—but then will revert magnificently. They suddenly squat and urinate in the house, bite your hand, sniff your crotch, jump on a stranger, eat something gnarly in the grass, don't come when you call them, roughly tackle a much smaller dog. In this way, our frustrations with dogs often arise from our extreme anthropomorphizing, which neglects the very animalness of dogs. A complex animal cannot be explained simply.
The alternative to anthropomorphizing is not simply treating animals as precisely unhuman. We now have the tools to take a more measured look at their behavior: with their umwelt and their perceptual and cognitive abilities in mind. Nor need we take a dispassionate stance toward animals. Scientists anthropomorphize … at home. They name their pets, and see love in a named-dog's upward-turned gaze. In research, names are verboten: while they might help tell animals apart, they are not benign. Naming a wild animal "colors one's thinking about it forever afterwards," a preeminent field biologist noted. There are obvious observational biases that are introduced when you name the subject of your observations. Jane Goodall famously violated this maxim, and "Graybeard" became known to the world. But "Graybeard" for me connotes a wise, old man: as a result, I may be more likely to perceive his behavior as indicative of his wisdom than see it as foolishness. Instead, to distinguish individual animals, most ethologists use identifying markings—leg bands, tags, or marking fur or feathers with dye—or look for identity in habitual behavior, social organization, or natural physical features.*
To name a dog is to begin to make him personal—and thus an anthropomorphizable creature. But we must. To name a dog is to assert an interest in understanding the nature of the dog; to not name the dog seems the pinnacle of disinterest. Dogs named Dog make me sad: the dog is already defined out of being a player in the owner's life. Dog has no name of his own; he is only a taxonomic subspecies. He will never be treated as an individual. What one is doing when naming a dog is starting him on the personality that he is to grow into. When trying out names for our dog, calling words out at her—"Bean!" "Bella!" "Blue!"—to see if any prompted a reaction, I felt that I was searching for "her name": the name that was already hers. With it, the bond between human and animal—wrought of understanding, not projection—could begin to form.
Go look at your dog. Go to him! Imagine his umwelt—and let him change your own.
Postscript: Me and My Dog
I sometimes find deep recognition in photos of her in which her eyes were not distinguishable from the darkness of her coat. It represents to me the way in which there was always something mysterious about her existence to me: what it was like to be Pump. She never laid it out there in the open. She had a privacy about her. I feel privileged that I was let into that private realm.
Pumpernickel wagged into my life in August 1990. We spent nearly every day together, until the day of her last breaths in November 2006. I still spend every one of my days with her.
Pump was a total surprise. I didn't expect to be changed constitutionally by a dog. But it quickly became apparent that the description "a dog" didn't capture the astounding abundance of facets to her, the depth of her experience, and the possibilities of a lifetime knowing her. Before long, I felt pleasure simply at her company and pride at watching her act. She was spirited, patient, willful, and disarming all in one great furry bundle. She was sure of her opinions (she had no truck with yipping dogs) and yet open to new things (as the occasional fostered cat—despite each's unwavering disinterest). She was effusive; she was responsive; she was great fun.
What Pump was not was a subject in my research (at least, not intentionally). Still,