I am trying to keep my blog from sucking.
So I do two things:
I keep my blog topics diverse.
I don’t jump onto bandwagons.
And those two issues make it very hard for me to have a blog network the way that some bloggers have.
For example, I don’t buy into Cesar Millan.
I saw that show in the 1990s. That was Uncle Matty Margolis. Blah.
(And now I will be defamed in the comments for disparaging someone’s favorite dog training guru. LOL. You people need to get lives, think for yourselves,and not believe everything you see on TV. And don’t believe every word I say either. Please look up what I say. Please challenge me. I don’t have a monopoly on truth. No one does.)
I also don’t buy into Raymond Coppinger’s theory on dog domestication. I find it very simplistic.
But the ones who critique Millan often resort to using Coppinger’s theory, which posits that dogs are a unique species derived from some sort of degenerate scavenging canid that is not a wolf. If it’s not a wolf, then all that Millan says about pack hierarchy is wrong.
But dogs are wolves. Or rather they are as part of a very diverse species that has historically produced chihuahuas and giant wolves with bone crushing jaws. (That is what fascinates me more than anything about dogs and wolves–this great diversity in phenotype and behavior that can be found in just a single species.)
Wolves do not always form packs. They are also quite capable of learning different ways of relating toward each other and toward other species.
And not all relations between wolves and between dogs can be reduced to hierarchy.
Which is exactly what we’re getting with Cesar Millan.
I don’t buy into two major camps of the dog world.
Both groups are using what I think are empirically quite nebulous and scientifically dubious theories to position what a dog exactly is in our society and in the grand scheme.
I should mention that this is really what all of these fights come down to:
What is a dog?
Is it a degenerate, garbage eating canid that is related to the wolf?
Is it a Machiavellian animal that seeks to rule the world?
Or is it both something far more simple and something far more complex?
Nobody yet has answered that question about the dog’s identity.
I am trying very hard.
But it is like an onion. Each time a bit is peeled away, another layer is revealed.
Anyone who thinks he or she has all the answers about dogs is full of crap and should be avoided at all costs.
The truth is we’re dealing with a higher nonprimate mammal.
We’re also dealing with an animal that bonds very strongly to both people and its own species.
And in that way, it become entangled in the vagaries of our culture, our society, our economic and political systems, and our own views of ourselves.
It is almost impossible to look at dogs objectively.
Same goes with wolves.
Our connection to these animals is so deeply ingrained in our culture.
It may even be beyond culture.
It may be so deeply ingrained in our evolutionary past that we cannot help but relate to these animals in any way but culturally.
We cannot look objectively at them.
For example, I can easily defend lion hunting to promote revenue for conservation, but it is cognitively harder for me to do the same for wolves– even though the economic and ecological advantages would be the same.
I find that puzzling.
I don’t think I could in good conscience shoot a wolf or a coyote.
But biologically they can be culled without making them extinct.
And because I have to consider all of these things in order to write credible nonfiction, I am not about to jump onto any one theory about the dog.
I’ll keep my topics diverse. I know that some of my readers don’t want the wildlife or prehistoric animal posts. And others want more breed histories.
And others want more about dog domestication and behavior.
But I’m doing okay with keeping things diverse.
I keep my comment moderation fairly open.
This blog is about dialog.
But one should be skeptical of those who have grand unified theories about dogs and have not included any careful analysis about how dogs are distorted through our human lenses.
It is not just that people “spoil” dogs.
That is part of the equation.
But the other part is that we have decided that we must force our will over dogs, never let them be dogs, and never let the have off-leash exercise.
Spoiling dogs can make them neurotic.
But the denying them some liberties in life can’t be good for them.
I’m not being anthropomorphic here, but the dogs where I grew up were fairly well-behaved.
And they had plenty a lot of freedom to socialize and walk off-leash.
Humans love to be bosses. We are hierarchical.
Our egos revel in hierarchy.
Any half-assed theory that says we must have more power is going to be very popular with us.
It may not be the real world, but it sounds good to us.
Because of all of these reasons, we need to be careful what think about dogs.
We need to be skeptical of bandwagons and crap you see on TV.
Read books.
Talk to real experts (Hint: I’m not one.)
My goals on this blog are not to spoon-feed you bromides.
Think for yourself.
Think for your dog.
And try to give it the best life you can.
Don’t assume that because someone is on TV that they know what the hell they are talking about.
That’s a big problem in this country.
I don’t carry water for anyone. I defend those who talk sense, as near as I can tell.
So while I am trying to keep this blog from sucking, I’m not going to reduce myself to bandwagons.
It’s just not me.
And I do nuance. Dogs do nuance, too– but it’s less nuanced than ours would be.
Dogs will bend to fit us. And we’ll congratulate ourselves for their effort.
That’s the way it always has been.
That’s the real important thing about dogs.
They genuflect to our needs in so many ways, and we don’t really seem to marvel at that.
Maybe we should just do that.
Marvel.
And stop the BS.
Be skeptical.
You owe it to yourself and your dogs.
