Are Dogs Human? [Well, I'd Have to Say So!]

                   Rosie is a Mixed Breed (50% Terrier, 50% Human)

Dear George,

Often I walk home from the office with a friend who I will only identify as Rosie’s mother.  Rosie is a mix of terrier, border collie, and some other stuff, and she is one of the best jumpers and howlers in our neighborhood, as well as being quite intelligent.  Every now and then my friend winds up an anecdote about Rosie with the statement, “but, of course, she’s just a dog.”  This is confusing to me, and I typically respond, “Well, she’s more than a dog.  She’s pretty much like a human being.”  Rosie’s mother thinks that’s foolish, although, the more I’ve thought about this matter, the more certain I’ve become.  (Note:  When I mentioned to Rosie’s mother that I was writing this letter, she asked me to clarify that she is not Rosie’s mother – she is Rosie’s owner.  She claims that Rosie is a stray and that her mother, in fact, is long gone.  I guess that’s a way of looking at it, though it’s not how I like to think about it.)

 

To address the dog-human question, consider our sheepdogs, Mike and Duffy.  The other day I made a list of all 85 of their body parts (e.g., teeth, ears, liver, kidney, eyelids).  Human beings have almost all the same body parts.  They might have a few extra as well (e.g., wrists, earlobes), but one would have to conclude that, anatomically, people and sheepdogs are impressively similar. 

 

Next I made a list of all the things that Mike and Duffy had done so far that day (e.g., ate breakfast, played with their toys, looked out the window, taken a nap, lay on their back, had a bad dream, asked me to take them out, went for a walk together, said hello to passersby).  I was excited to realize that we do all those things too – people and dogs, pretty pretty similar.  Though I do do some other things that the dogs don’t (e.g., play Suduko), the more essential to survival our behaviors are, the more we are alike. 

 

Thinking there might be some semantic questions involved, I looked up “human” in the Oxford English Dictionary.  One stated meaning is “Having or showing the qualities distinctive of or commonly attributed to human beings.”  I guess just about everybody who knows them would consider Mike to be clever, laid back, and friendly, while his brother Duffy is bossy, impulsive, and anxious.  Human qualities?  You’d have to say so.

 

While all this was pretty conclusive, I performed the ultimate test by checking the Internet, doing a Google search on the phrase “dogs are people”.  I got 53,200 hits.  This included a paperback book titled Dogs Are People Too by Ron Truscott, available for $19.95 from Amazon.  “Dogs are not people,” in contrast, elicited a measly 16,900 Google hits.    

                     Is Duffy Catching Up on Health Care Reform?

The heart of the question boils down to how we treat dogs.  We can treat them as if they are just dogs or we can treat them as if they are humans as well.  At Rosie’s house, she is not allowed on the couch or in her masters’ bed.  While she enjoys a comfortable life, Rosie does get treated like a dog.  At our house, on the other hand, Mike and Duffy are not only allowed on the couch and the bed, but they are lifted up onto the bed and given first choice about what space they would prefer to occupy.  A neutral observer might conclude they are not only treated like human beings, but they are treated better than the human beings are.  (Among other things their owners talk to them on the telephone, sing songs to them, and constantly tell them how amazing they are.)  There are, of course, occasional exceptions.  This morning the Time-Warner guy came by to fix our cable TV.  Mike and Duffy got unusually excited, barked at the top of their voices, and leaped up and down at the guy when he stepped into the house.  I wanted to explain to him that, underneath all that fur, the dogs are basically human beings, much like ourselves, and that there’s nothing to worry about.  However, I decided that the technician, frozen with fear, would not hear my message.  So I locked the dogs in the bedroom.  Once in a while you have to treat them as though they are dogs, even though you yourself know better.

Love,

Dave

G-Mail Comments:

-Phyllis SS (4-24): Dave, I agree.  But, did you hear about the Supreme Court decision re: lst amendment rights and animals this past week?  It was terrible for animals - heartless judges.  pss

-Linda C (4-23): of course they are human, just before art died he told me he thought i should get a dog. so for the holidays ben and theo got a mutt that we had to pay for, he is really smart and i think sometimes all that inbreeding isn't good, jayme and ben are going to the teach him manners class…  by the way , i think the proper term is dog companion, not owner or even mother, maybe your friend can handle the companion term, and that dog is really cute… what did the dog think of the health care argument, he was looking so intently, as always love the blog and pictures  linda