Canis lupus hominis

Dave, who writes the wonderful Prick-Eared blog, has just posted what I think is one of the best analyses of the dog and human relationship from a Darwinian perspective.

It is rather foolish to think of humans domesticating the dogs. In fact, it would be more accurate to say they engaged in a pact with us. Now, in order to explain this, one must first dislodges the Judeo-Christian view-point of the world where mankind has domain over nature.

For eons, we have a self-centric view of the Universe which has been proven to be false: the Earth is at the center of the Universe; mankind is the only one capable of developing tools, languages and cultures; humans are the only sentient beings; and we are the only one who broke free of the shackles of evolution. Of course, none of this is true: Johannes Kepler debunked the geocentric view of the solar system; chimpanzees are also capable of fashioning tools; dolphins and whales have complex way of communicating in compositions of low-frequency sounds; elephants have been shown to recognize themselves in mirrors; and the war on viruses and micro-organisms is a constant reminder we are still at the mercy of nature. Let’s go one step further: the delusion of domestication is dependent on who view themselves as gaining the most benefits.

Dog and man have co-evolved together, however neither one of us actually see it this way. From our point of view: we dominated the wolf; employed them to share the load and search games; sculptured their flesh and bones; manipulated their behaviours in our favour; and they are objects of status-elevation. From the dog’s point of view, they domesticated us. The hounds see us as an asset in a hunt, delivering the killing blow to the boar or the bear. The team of huskies request us to hunt for them, to partition the shot moose or caribou, and load up the sled with our opposable thumbs to haul the meat back to their dens. The farm collie struck a bargain with the farmer for a bed’n’breakfast deal in exchange for manual labour. The Chin leads a lofty lifestyle sitting in the imperial palace as a figurehead, with servants swooning all over him; and he is protected from the elements by the sleeves of the kimonos of his escort in the outside world. From their point of view, we are the ones who have been domesticated by the dogs.

With the alliance forged between wolves and humans several millennia ago, a contract has been signed and the two of us has been bound ever since. Once in awhile, the contract is re-negotiated. In the last 200 years, dogs have agreed to an addendum allowing show breeders to sculpt their offspring to be reimbursed with a guaranteed sex life. In the last 50 years, a clause was written in, asking the dogs to become surrogates in absence of kinship among our own kind. No longer are dogs and humans comrades working toward a common goal, but rather as brothers or sisters; or daughters and sons. While they are not our blood relatives, the relationships have manifested as such.

This sort of relationship likely started out in this fashion, but in the past 200 years, the Industrial Revolution has changed it all.

By and large, domestic dogs are not needed to provide vital services to the economy, but the dog exists now in greater numbers than he ever did before.

With the dual forces of increased wealth through industrial production and the democratization of society, a middle class was built. In every country that has adopted industrial production, these forces act upon society to create it.

And this middle class has both money and leisure time, which they very often spend on pets.

In the old days, a dog was kept according to its utility. Only nobles could keep specialized hunting breeds or cute little lap dogs.

But with the rise of a relatively affluent middle class across the West, the market for these sorts of dogs was suddenly open to more people.

For example, during much of the eighteenth century, everyone wanted a Newfoundland dog, even if they lived miles from the coast. Newfoundlands had been widely popularized in literature for their intelligence and gentle natures, traits that everyone wanted to have in a family dog. The dogs were derived from the working water curs of Newfoundland, but in nineteenth century Europe and North America, they evolved into the giant family dogs and the retrievers, which were one of the most specialized hunting dogs. (The idea that they are necessarily specialized is, of course, wrong, but tradition says their only utility was in picking up game. Having such a large dog that did only one thing was a symbol of one’s own wealth and prestige, which is why they were kept primarily for that purpose.)

But this renegotiated contract, which took the dog from the totally utilitarian being that it was, laid the seeds for the ultimate perversion in the relationship. Dave continues:

In the new draft two centuries ago, several groups of dogs forefeited their liberty for promise of safety. In the virtue of selfishness of propagating their genes, several breeds have gone to the extremes; and the English Bulldog has been very selfish indeed at the expense of their own health. The Bulldog sold the ability to cool themselves to capitalize on the tendency of humans equating anything with a squished-face as infantile. The appeal to flat face is so successful, no longer are the Bulldogs required to birth naturally as they can only exist through Caesarean sections; and once civilization crumbles, the bulldog is extinct. The dependence on technology will either be pivotal to their existence or their very undoing. In fact, the fate of Bulldog is so intertwined with technology, we believe they are worth propping up on a pedestal. Truly, the Bulldogs are the master of manipulating the middle-class.

In a way, the bulldog is like the flower that can only exist when a certain species of bee pollinates it. If that bee were to become extinct, the flower would die. Nature creates these specialized alliances, but we fail to recognize that human agency can also create them.

We humans are doing unbelievably stupid things in regard to our “junior partner.”

We see them as nothing more than a medium of sculpture in which we can mold  into whatever esoteric and bizarre forms. They become nothing more than living works of art, even though they are still a biological entity. They have genes. They have behavior. They have instincts and drives.

We have renegotiated the contracts so much that one begins to wonder which species is truly benefiting here. The human drive to stroke the ego becomes embedded in the dog’s very existence. The dogs might get free room and board and plenty of opportunities to breed– if they are of sufficient quality. But their essence as animals– as beings– is not fully appreciated. I don’t think the majority of pet owners approach this aspect of the dog. Too often the relationship becomes anthropomorphic projections and– even worse– projections of human parental behavior and attachment.

We just lost sight of what a dog is.

They are not just dogs.

They simply are dogs. They do not crave our domination or our constant affection.

All they ask is to be taken on their own terms, as the beings that they are.

But too often we lack the empathy to step back a give them what they truly deserve.