The Real Problem with Anthropomorphizing Dogs
There’s a knothole in the fence near our front door, right about canine-eye level. When I come home, our Border Collie, Genghis, is invariably at the knothole, trying to anticipate who’s arriving. That part’s not surprising — anticipation is what BCs do. But it’s not his eye to the knothole — it’s his nose.
Collies are not the scent champs of the canine world — far from it. But think what it would mean to have a nose 100 times more capable than our own (if objective science is to be believed)! Sight is obviously useful in our Darwinian niche, but it’s mostly transitory. Scent, by contrast, allows a look back in time at not just what’s happening now, but at what occurred a day, a week or much longer ago. And if you are concerned that this enhanced olfactory sensitivity might be a mixed blessing, try to focus on how sensual and rich the smell of a favorite savory soup might be. Genghis smells the world we see.
As an aside, medical researchers are lately beginning to comprehend this factoid in the context of cancer-sniffing dogs, whose noses far outstrip the capabilities of other diagnostic tools. Predictably, medical equipment manufacturers are also sparing no effort to try to improve their mechanical devices to better mimic the canine nostrils’ remarkable sensitivity. Gosh — if only there were a cheap source of canines who might be trained and devoted to that humanitarian task for a decade or more, with few repairs and only low-cost maintenance required!
Scientists have long warned against the imprecision and misimpressions of ‘anthropomorphizing’ animal subjects — ascribing human qualities to them. The stated enemy is the possibly mistaken notion that their cognitive processes mirror our own complicated mental analyses, instead of the preferred assumption that lower species are purer examples of stimulus/response behaviors. If we were to decide that canines are like us in that regard, objective scientific findings might be muddled by dreaded subjectivity.
Having witnessed a few of the routine indignities visited on animals by scientific research, however, my own (subjective!) suspicion is that, as far as science is concerned, the real enemy is the human instinct to care. Whether labeled “sentimentality” or the less pejorative “humanity,” it can get in the way of research. Caring complicates experimental processes with issues like routine maintenance that respects the animals’ nature, protocols that attempt to minimize fear or discomfort, and humane ultimate disposition of the subjects upon conclusion of their work for us.
In other words, it costs money. The fact that vet schools have been slow (and late) to even consider ethics curricula suggests to me that anthropomorphism is also a technical term for “inertia.”
That’s bad enough. But there’s another, broader problem that interferes with the relationships all human keepers have with their companion animals: our presumed dominion over other species connotes to us a superiority in all things. It’s an arrogant assumption, as the advocate Henry Drummond famously noted in ‘Inherit the Wind.’ *
Anthropomorphizing leads us off the scent (and over a perceptual cliff) in understanding canine behaviors, because it imposes the assumption that their sensory inputs are limited to the capacities of our dull, sight-oriented biology. Quite possibly other species — even sponges — have their own misguided conceits; this one robs us of a richer understanding and appreciation of our canine brethren.
I listened to a call-in show recently, hosted by a supposed animal expert. A caller inquired about her dog, who sometimes raised his hackles for no apparent reason when they were out for a walk. The expert responded by calling it “idiopathic,” a fancy term for irrational, or random, or unexplainable. Allow me to suggest an alternative explanation: the dog was responding to clear messages from the environment that we lack the wits to comprehend.
We don’t know how Lassie knew that Timmy had fallen down the well at the old Johnson place. But we ought to be respectful — grateful even, and not dismiss canine behaviors as random or silly. We need to appreciate that anthropomorphism sells them way short — they’re much better at many things beyond catching that frisbee.
We have a lot to learn from dogs, if we only will.
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* “What other merit have we? The elephant is larger, the horse is swifter and stronger, the butterfly is far more beautiful, the mosquito is more prolific. Even the simple sponge is more durable.”
