Why do we do we love our dogs, even while they are slowly killing us?

"We have bred our pets to suit lives of confinement, social isolation, screen time and passivity."

 

Hal Herzog, a professor of psychology at Western Carolina University, wrote about the contradictions of dog ownership in his book, Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard To Think Straight About Animals. In an interview on the popular radio show and podcast, Hidden Brain, he explained why the World Wildlife Fund took the Chinese Giant Panda for its logo:

[I]t has these giant circles around its eyes, which ethologists call baby releasers. So we look at that panda, and it basically logs on to that — jams into that maternal instinct that we have when we see creatures with big eyes, and it imprints on them. In some ways, it reminds us of a human infant. So, for example, researchers have shown that one of the biggest predictors of whether or not people will give money to save animals is the size of the animal’s eyes. And pandas certainly have it when it comes to eye size.

Same for puppies. They are seen as new additions to the family. We pamper them in ways we would feel guilty pampering a child. Herzog says, “There’s a hotel that has a zen room where you can get your pets a massage. And I don’t know what else pets do in a zen room. We’re talking about dog parks. We’re talking about jeweled collars. We’re talking about pet fashion weeks.”

I’ve got a friend that’s an anthropologist who was born and raised in Kenya. And in the village where he was raised, they kept dogs. The dogs were allowed to roam freely in the village. They really liked dogs that we would consider mean dogs because they scared away animals, and they scared away strangers, but they weren’t considered pets. In fact, in his language, they don’t even have a word for pet. And I went to ask him. I said, Nyaga, would you, like, you know, let a dog in your house when you were living in Africa? And he said, no. I said, would you let a dog eat at the table and, you know, feed him table scraps? He said, no. I said, Nyaga, would you let a dog sleep in your bed? And the look at the horror on his face, it was like if I said, hey, I’ve got this really cool rat I just caught down at the Hudson River. You want to sleep with it tonight?

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A popular myth has it that pets are good for people and that if you get a pet, you will be a happier and healthier person. Some point to the necessity of taking a dog for a walk as forcing people into less sedentary lifestyles. Herzog says we don’t have particularly good evidence for that. Many studies “say just the opposite, that people with pets are more lonely, that they’re more likely to go to the doctor, that they’re more likely to drink a lot, that they’re more likely to have ulcers.”

Moreover, these neurotic pathologies are then passed back to their dogs, who mirror their owners’ neuroses. The big five hallmarks of personality — neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness — are all transmitted from owner to dog.

Just as most dogs have brown eyes because the blue eyes common to their wolf ancestors were bred out when they seemed more frightening, we have bred our dogs to suit lives of confinement, social isolation, screen time and passivity.

Viral Vectors

More studies now point to dogs as viral vectors. They are among the 34 mammalian species in 39 countries to have been confirmed to carry SARS-CoV2. The CDC doesn’t currently recommend isolating yourself from family pets if you’re sick with Covid but it does recommend avoiding close contact. That includes not:

• Petting
• Snuggling
• Kissing
• Sharing food, and
• Sleeping in the same bed

These are good things to think about while climate change and increased temperatures are triggering an increased spread of parasite-borne diseases. Low vaccination coverage, unrestricted dog movement, and high dog population turnover currently feed endemic rabies in Kenya and other African nations.

 

 

 

Canadroids

But consider. One way we might get the companionship we crave and dog-walking health benefits we need could be to buy a robot (canadroid?) companion. Hertzog says that wouldn’t raise “the pesky ethical questions that come with pet ownership.”

You don’t have to worry about the ethics of depriving Aibo of a sex life by castrating him. You don’t have to worry about the ethics of leaving Aibo alone for long periods of time while you’re at your office during the day.

Assuming we could power our robopets with solar energy, could we have as fulfilling a furry house slave experience with them? Writing for The National Geographic, Annie Roth suggests:

Saying no when Fido gives you his best “puppy-dog eyes” can be extremely difficult. For thousands of years, dogs have been cajoling people by making this pitiful, adorable expression — an ability that may be the result of selective breeding, a new study says.

 
Tiny muscles around the eyes and mouth enable terrestrial mammals to form myriad facial expressions. Those muscles are more similar in dogs and humans than in dogs and wolves, says the study by researchers from Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University. In wolves, most of the facial muscles are slow-twitch fibers, which adjust less rapidly, while in humans and domesticated dogs, most of the muscles are fast-twitch fibers, which react quickly. It’s this musculature difference that allows dogs to make puppy-dog eyes and other animated, humanlike expressions that wolves can’t.

Communicating with facial cues is “fundamental to all humans,” says study lead author Anne Burrows. “So it seems reasonable that we would have selected dogs during selective breeding that would gaze into our eyes.” Burrows and colleagues are now investigating whether the evolution of fast-twitching muscles around dogs’ mouths played a role in the barks they developed to communicate.

My best guess is that AI dog robot designers can and will master these micro-muscular visual cues and make your cute little bag of bolts as fast-twitch and cortisol-stimulating as any real dog.

Climate Pawprint

It would not be a bad thing if robot-dogs became fashionable, if it reduced the climate paw print of our favorite pet. In the USA, dogs and cats consume 24 to 42 percent of the animal-derived calories as humans. In that nation’s 25 thousand factory farms, there are 1.6 billion animals at any given moment. Three hundred eighty-four to 672 billion of those cows, chickens, hogs and many other animals are destined to become pet food. So, too, the fate of one-third of the fish caught in the world, much of that so-called “by-catch” or the “forage fish” needed to support larger marine life.

Confronted by a backlash against private jet travel by climate activists, one of the providers in luxury aviation, CEO Patrick Hansen of Luxaviation, told a business convention in Monaco this past October that his company’s flights produce about 2.1 tonnes of CO2 a year per passenger — the equivalent of owning three dogs.

Which would you rather have, a private charter jet or three dogs?

Which do you prefer, picking up your dog’s poop in a plastic bag and sending it off to a landfill, or purpose-designed composting or worm farming? I think I know what most USAnians would say. But, rather than a getting a Great Dane or St. Bernard, consider keeping a house rabbit or guinea pig, which are vegans.

Gourmet Options

There are now vegan pet food companies that claim their products are healthy for both dogs and cats (cats are obligate carnivores). I recently priced one of them, Benevo, located in the southeast of England between Portsmouth and Chichester. A bulk case of 12 cans of PeTA-certified Benevo Duo Cat & Dog Foods will run you 29 pounds plus shipping. An average size dog will require one can (@354 grams from potatoes, carrots, peas, tomatoes, brown rice, blueberries and cranberries) per day. Excluding shipping that would cost the owner £882 per year or £13230 for the 15-year life of the pet. A larger dog (>25 Kg) could cost £1386/y or £16260 for life (USD$1386/y or $20790) to keep up the Benevo drip.

Veterinarian Dr Elise Anderson with Vets for Climate Action says just as people who would consider an electric vehicle or smaller car “should start to think similarly about the size of their pets.” The smaller they are the smaller their climate paw print.

Miniatures, like Chihuahuas, are loved for their enormous eyes.

References

De Silva, Sena S., and Giovanni M. Turchini. “Towards understanding the impacts of the pet food industry on world fish and seafood supplies.” Journal of agricultural and environmental ethics 21 (2008): 459–467.

Dey, Tanujit, Antonella Zanobetti, and Clas Linnman. “The risk of being bitten by a dog is higher on hot, sunny, and smoggy days.” Scientific reports 13.1 (2023): 8749.

Greenspoon, Lior, et al. “The global biomass of wild mammals.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120.10 (2023): e2204892120.

Okin, G.S., Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats. PLoS One. 2017 Aug 2;12(8):e0181301. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0181301. eCollection 2017.

Sheldrake, R., Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999.

Schöberl, Iris, et al. “Psychobiological factors affecting cortisol variability in human-dog dyads.” PLoS One 12.2 (2017): e0170707.

Somppi, Sanni, et al. “Dog–owner relationship, owner interpretations and dog personality are connected with the emotional reactivity of dogs.” Animals 12.11 (2022): 1338.

Wynne, Clive D. L.. Dog Is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2019.

Image courtesy of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)

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