{"id":761324,"date":"2020-09-01T08:28:20","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T12:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=761324"},"modified":"2020-09-01T08:29:25","modified_gmt":"2020-09-01T12:29:25","slug":"does-the-dog-die-fake-dogs-real-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=761324","title":{"rendered":"DOES THE DOG DIE?: Fake Dogs, Real Emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t

Are people more disturbed by dog or human suffering? The results of a study showed humans have more empathy for fictitious puppies, dogs, and children than for fictitious adult humans.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

BEN LINDBERGH:<\/strong> Is it rational to dread the death of a fictional character? Is it logical to dread the death of a fictional dog while, if anything, eagerly anticipating the deaths of the 299 fictional people John Wick kills in the first three films, in ways almost too brutal to be believed? Probably not. But it\u2019s not that unusual, either. John Whipple would know: He\u2019s the founder of Does the Dog Die?, a site started for the specific purpose of sparing dog lovers the sight of man\u2019s best fictional friend expiring on screen. Thanks to Whipple\u2019s work, I know exactly when dogs do and don\u2019t die in John Wick without having seen any suffer… \u201cAs soon as somebody sees a dog on the screen, they\u2019re going to pause it and come check the website,\u201d Whipple says, although the most vigilant dog-death avoiders may consult the crowdsourced site even before they choose what to watch…<\/p>\n

Does the Dog Die? is one of a few internet institutions devoted to cataloguing the presence and role of fictional dogs in entertainment media. While Does the Dog Die? provides PSAs for dog-death avoiders across many media\u2014from movies, TV shows, and video games to books, podcasts, and comic books\u2014the Tumblr-based Dogs in Movies Database (DIMDb) simply documents every dog its creator has discovered while watching thousands of films. A third dog-related endeavor, the Twitter account Can You Pet the Dog?, identifies video games in which it\u2019s possible for the player to pet pixelated canines. Taken together, these three online labors of love epitomize the almost mystifyingly deep attachment humans have to dogs, which expresses itself just as strongly when the dogs don\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re watching fiction, then you take the death of people for granted, whereas the death of an animal somehow breaks through that fictional lightness,\u201d says behavioral scientist Clive Wynne, founding director of the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University. That especially painful quality is responsible for the genesis of Does the Dog Die? Whipple, a professional software developer, birthed Does the Dog Die? in 2010 at the request of his sister, who had become increasingly bothered by emotionally manipulative dog-death tropes in movies after reading a bestselling book about screenwriting, Save the Cat! Killing a dog, Whipple says, may be \u201cgreat for dramatic effect\u201d and for motivating retired contract killers to embark on murderous rampages against Russian crime syndicates. But it isn\u2019t much fun for people who find dog deaths more distasteful than other forms of fictional violence…<\/p>\n

According to its creator, Does the Dog Die? has remained refreshingly free of spammers, trolls, and others with ill intent, but its users still sometimes disagree, even about something that may seem as straightforward as whether a dog died. The following table, based on data provided by Whipple, lists the most contentious ratings on the site, counting categories with less than a 20 percent difference between \u201cyes\u201d and \u201cno\u201d vote counts, ordered by most comments. Users may quibble about whether a dog died if, for instance, its death occurred off screen or is only implied. But \u201cover time, the correct answer will come out,\u201d says Whipple, who trusts in the wisdom of crowds… From an evolutionary standpoint, shouldn\u2019t we be bothered by depictions of endangered humans more than we are by depictions of endangered dogs, no matter how cute, soft, and smol?<\/p>\n

Actually, that very cuteness hijacks human hardwiring to make us care deeply about dogs. In 2017, three sociology and\/or anthropology professors published a paper in the peer-reviewed Society & Animals journal with the inviting title \u201cAre People More Disturbed By Dog or Human Suffering?\u201d The paper reported the results of a study in which 256 undergraduates at a \u201cmajor northeastern university\u201d were \u201casked to indicate their degree of empathy for a brutally beaten human adult or child versus an adult dog or puppy, as described in a fictitious news report.\u201d (Sounds like a fun afternoon.) The results suggested that humans experience more empathy for fictitious human children, puppies, and adult dogs than for fictitious adult humans. SOURCE…<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

RELATED VIDEO:<\/strong><\/p>\n