Humanizing. That’s the word for you who think that dogs have same feelings and thoughts as humans. We actually forget, that dog really is a dog, descend from a wolf with matching 99% gene pool. Instincts and urges are the driving force behind their behaviour, and only man made selective breeding has moulded many breeds bit to a more friendly form.
As a professional dognom , a person trained to train the dogs and their owners, I see problems every day at my work. Biggest problems are with those very nice dog owners, who think their dogs as fellow humans. They don’t want to demand, they try to ask, but with no success. In dog (or wolf) herd power of the strongest rules, and others are happy with it. Like little child, you can’t really give the decision power to the dog. You make the rules and teach the dog that the leader of the pack is happy when he or she is obeyed. So let’s no humanize. Let the dogs be dogs.
-Karoliina Nuutinen
Dognom (licenced dog trainer), Finland
Good post for dog owners, or people who are going to have a dog. Don’t be too nice, you make the rules!
Who cares about the people. I am certainly not there to socialize but to get my dog to exercise and run as much as possible so she doesn’t dog holes in the backyard because of excess energy.
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Humanizing is not negative and no professionel dog trainer is better in evaluating dogs mind capacities than a non professionel dog owner having worked with dogs for several decades. As a Dr of veterinaru medicine through 33 years I have also studied animals mind and behaviour. It is said that dogs derive from the wolf. Well, human beings is said to derive from apes and through thousand of years we and our mind and intelligence have developed compared to the apes. So has the mind of dogs compared to the wolf. Changes in dog minds are probably developed through humanizing – living amongst human beings. Dogs are capable of thinking – dogs dreaming is a good proof of this. Dogs can feel happy, sad, sorrowness, jalousy a.s.o. So nothing wrong in humanizing your dog.