SLAVES ‘TO FASHION’: Why dogs need more respect and agency over their lives
Dogs rarely get to choose their home, nor can they choose to leave if they are unhappy; they cannot choose their family or friends; nor do they have much choice about how to provision food, when are where to go to the bathroom, or when to mate, bear, and raise young.
JESSICA PIERCE: The single most significant problem facing homed dogs right now it would be lack of adequate agency. Dogs have very little control over their sensory environment, their social interactions, and the basic elements of daily survival, all of which are orchestrated by human guardians. This lack of control — a near-total loss of agency — has significant fallout for their physical and especially their psychological well-being…
Agency is the ability to make choices for oneself, to exert control over one’s environment and, more important, to have the perception of being in control. Pet dogs experience a loss of agency in relation to the overall arc of their lives. They rarely get to choose their home, nor can they choose to leave if they are unhappy; they cannot choose their family or friends; nor do they have much choice about how to provision food, when are where to go to the bathroom, or when to mate, bear, and raise young.
Loss of agency also occurs in various small but significant ways throughout the day—for example, the imposition of a collar and leash on free movement, unwanted and invasive touching by unfamiliar humans, and the suppression through training regimens of natural canine behaviors such as barking or seeking affection…
Having a sense of control over one’s environment is fundamental to psychological integrity. This is as true for humans as it is for other animals, including dogs… Exerting control over one’s environment also seems to be rewarding in and of itself. McMillan cites a series of experiments with captive rodents which found that the animals “exercise control virtually any chance they get” and appear to find it intrinsically rewarding to exert a high degree of control over their environment.
The process of making choices and exerting control promotes psychological well-being. But it may also be that actual choices animals make are important to them. They might make different choices for themselves than we make for them, choices more aligned with their preferences and needs than with our own…
Empowering dogs is good for them in direct ways: Not only might they make different and better choices for themselves than we might make for them, the process of making and implementing choices improves their well-being by giving them control over their lives. Lack of control can be unpleasant, even psychologically harmful. A dog with greater agency is a happier dog. Moreover, through the process of choice-making, dogs have opportunities to learn and develop.
Empowering dogs is also good in indirect ways, because it helps shift the moral paradigm for humans. The act of respecting dogs’ interests in making choices is a way of acknowledging and respecting their intrinsic value. It also goes some small way toward redressing power asymmetries in human-animal relations…
Fortunately, there are countless easy ways to enhance our dogs’ agency—the only limit is our imagination… Here are a few specific ways we can make space for agency. All require that we listen actively to our dog and pay attention to body language, facial expression, and vocal communications. SOURCE…
MARC BEKOFF: Louise Glazebrook’s new book ‘The Book Your Dog Wishes You Would Read’ focuses on the necessity for developing reciprocal give-and-take relationships between dogs and their humans, Louise offers important science-based practical advice… and ideas about dog-human relationships…
MB: Why did you write The book Your Dog Wishes You Would Read?
LG: The honest answer is that I felt we were constantly expecting things of these amazing creatures that were not realistic… I wanted the book to help get people to look at things from another point of view, the dog’s. Whereas most don’t do this, we just think about how dog ownership effects us. I also felt really strongly, after seeing people on social media with hundreds of thousands of followers, advocating horrible methods, that I needed to get people to understand it is not about commanding these animals all the time. That we as humans need to get over ourselves and stop believing that dogs are here for us to control the entire time…
MB: What are some of the topics you weave into your book and what are some of your major messages?
LG: The main take-away should be that your dog is not trying to annoy you. They are not trying to make your life difficult. They are a dog and they do things differently. My book also is for people to really get to grips with the idea that every dog is different. It’s key to the way I work and the way I am with my clients and their dogs. They are not cardboard cut-outs with a tail, so let’s get to know them better…
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about the amazing lives of dogs they will treat them with more respect and dignity?
LG: I am hopeful, I am positive. It is part of my life’s mission to make a difference to dog’s lives… Every dog I work with, encounter, watch in the park, live with, or play with teaches me something new. So as humans, we need to stop believing that we are the most powerful, we are the ones with all the control and use that energy to keep on moving forward, improving and changing the ways we interact with animals. SOURCE…
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