PLEASE HELP ME - I'M NOT A HUMAN

I just watched a video someone made about pit bulls that was obviously designed to break the human heart and to solicit interest in what happens to dogs obtained for fighting purposes.  The video told the story of a puppy adopted by a dog fighter and the abuses it endured told from the perspective of the dog.  The dog ‘wondered’ a lot of things, the dog ‘wished’ for a different life (like the one his mother had) and the dog ‘understood’ that the life it was leading was a bad one.  While I most certainly understand the point of the video, hopefully to motivate more people to combat dog fighting, the premise that a dog would be thinking and more so feeling all of this just like a human would I don’t think is helpful at all to dogs anywhere; not even as a vehicle for social change to benefit dogs.

There are already far, far, far too many dog owners, people who advocate for dogs and people who rescue dogs that truly believe that, and behave like, dogs are just like humans in every way except that they live in a different kind of body and have no voice to speak with.  Dogs do have a voice but it’s not the same as we humans have and if they did it most certainly would not be used to express all of the human shortcomings, fears, anxieties, thoughts and feelings that we all experience from time to time.  I can promise that a dog’s voice would not be used to tell sad tales of the past, it’s hopes or express fears about the future but would be used to express what is happening right now without judgment about it but simply to say, ‘I am happy, I am excited, I am playing, I am tired, I am anxious about what’s happening right now, I am afraid of the sound I’m hearing right now, I am hungry, I’m thirsty, I am bored, I want out, I’m so happy you are home, where are you going? I want to go too, etc.”

The belief that dogs have human-like feelings that are the result of human-like thinking is a detriment to dogs and is not a benefit to them.   The expression of our human love for dogs has often been more at their expense than for their benefit.  We show them affection 100% of the time; even when they’ve just exhibited a behavior that we don’t want them to.  We try to comfort them like we might a child when they are afraid.  Even though by doing so we are literally telling them that we want them to be afraid because we are giving affection while they are in a state of fear and that tells them we ‘like’ it when they feel that way.  So since their goal is to please us, every time they are in that situation again they will feel fearful or anxious.  We expect them to rationalize in order to understand our words, our meaning, our intentions and our desires when they don’t have the ability and never will have.  When we relate to them as we would a human and they don’t react or understand as we expect or want them to then we blame their past, what someone else did to them and even their breeding; often getting rid of them because of their behavioral issues when we caused the behavioral issues by treating them like a specie that they are not, will never be, can never be and who I personally would not like them to be.

Treating dogs like a dog is NOT inhumane and is not the sign of a heartless, cruel, cold, unfeeling human being.  In fact treating dogs like a dog based on how they treat one another is a gift that every dog deserves to have from the human who chooses to make that dog a part of their life.  I can’t imagine just how emotionally screwed up a human being might become or how they might misbehave if they were captured by another specie and then expected and forced to think like that specie in order to understand what that specie wants and is then forced to live a life as a member of that specie rather than as a member of our own specie.  How many of us would like and/or understand being forced to live and think like another specie even if it was in the lap of luxury with everything we could ever want?  How many of us would ‘sell our human soul’ and stop thinking/being human just so another specie could 'feel' good about having us in their lives and/or so we could live in the lap of luxury?  I know I wouldn’t.  I am human, deserve to be treated like one and absolutely deserve to live like one.

Treating our dogs like dogs does NOT mean that we don’t love them, that we don’t give them the best life possible, that we don’t make their lives as comfortable and as pleasant as possible.  Treating dogs like dogs, which they ARE, simply means that we go out of our way to observe and understand how dogs relate to one another, how they interact and how they communicate with one another so that we can provide (FOR them) the easiest ways to communicate with them so that they understand what it is we want from them and what is expected of them as a part of our family. 

In closing I just want to say that so many people say that they ‘love’ dogs when often enough the ‘love’ they feel is NOT for the specie itself but is for what that specie gives us which is unconditional love no matter who we are, what we do to them or how we treat them.  For this ‘unconditional love’ don’t you think we should give them the opportunity to be a dog rather than just our cute, four-legged source for unconditional love???  For all that dogs give to us don’t you think it’s time we gave back in a way that will not only serve them but will also serve the relationship we have with them because we are communicating with them on their level rather than expecting them to communicate with us on a human level? IF someone truly LOVES DOGS then one surely loves dogs not because they are a source of undying loyalty and of unconditional love but BECAUSE they are dogs and because dogs are an amazing specie that has a lot more to teach us about how to live in harmony and in a joyful state of mind than we could ever teach them…