Be Kind to Your Pets

July 16, 2020

I had a pleasant four-mile run tonight as the sun was setting in the suburb of Milwaukee where I live.  It’s been extremely difficult for me to remain consistent with my fitness endeavors during this coronavirus pandemic while living with my family and trying to minimize risk to them.  A depressive episode during quarantine reminded me that I can’t be picky during these difficult times, and I need to stick to the bits of routine that have always anchored me when I’m not able to fulfill my social needs as an extremely social person.

After a relatively quiet day of work at the running store and a homemade taco dinner that I gobbled down immediately after arriving home, I watched a few episodes of Grace and Frankie (an absolutely STELLAR show on Netflix) in order to muster up the motivation to run and to give my stomach a bit of time to digest.  I loathe running on a full stomach, although when I’m at my best as an athlete I will do it occasionally to try to attempt the impossible balance of daily distance running while consuming the untold number of calories needed just to survive.  I laced up my Escalantes, threw on a pair of short-shorts and headed out the door for this much-needed run.

Aside from a few muscular twinges, everything was going well until I ran past a man taking his intimidating German Shepard/Rottweiler mix (my best guess) for a walk.  I gave these two a very wide berth, as I give anyone out of respect for personal space and because I’ve run past enough dogs to know that it’s not worth assuming they’re all friendly.  This dog darted toward me into the street on its too-long leash and almost sank its teeth into my little runner thighs.  I honestly don’t even care that much about this aspect of the situation because I’ve made peace with death via dog attack long ago and I am emotionally numb to under-socialized, misbehaving dogs.  While I may be able to rationalize my emotions and habituate myself into behaving a certain way based on rational and linguistic social principles, dogs are not capable of that kind of thought in the same way that we are, and that is why I felt my heart drop in my chest when, from behind me, I heard the man scream “Shut the f*ck up” at his dog, followed by the abhorrently loud slap of the man hitting his dog.

I don’t know if this man hit his dog this hard because he thought it would be an effective training technique, because he was embarrassed, or because he thought it would somehow make me feel some kind of satisfaction at the universe’s karmic punishment for the dog’s bad behavior and potential stress it caused me, but it doesn’t matter what he thought.  It is not okay to abuse the crap out of an animal whose behavior is based on different instincts, its past experiences (which were probably not full of love and doggy cuddles), and an understanding of the world which does not focus on or even comprehend social etiquette.  The sight of a large, fast, bipedal man running down the street doesn’t naturally fit into any dog’s schema of “things that should be ignored.” People are so fixated on assigning culpability, even to animals, instead of attempting to understand them.  Evolution, and traits that led to the survival of the ‘Canis lupus familiaris’ definitely predispose dogs to protect at least themselves, if not their “owners” from scary alien things running by at night.  Why, evolutionarily, did the animals (or people) that dogs coevolved with run?  Not for fitness; running for fitness among humans didn’t even become popularized until the 1960s.  Animals throughout history only wasted that precious energy to escape predation or to catch the predators themselves.  Either way, witnessing a large animal running at a fast pace doesn’t trigger calming neurotransmitters to be released; that much, I think, is clear. The dog can only be blamed insofar as it is capable of understanding the consequences of its actions, and my hunch is that this dog was acting more on instinct than with careful decision theory formulations.

It made me sad to see an animal that I know is capable of at least some kinds of pain and pleasure be abused in this way, and to think that I was a catalyst in that particular situation.  I shouldn’t have to worry how many dogs I will cause to be abused by simply going out into a public space to work on my fitness, but this incidence is surprisingly common.  People need to not own pets if they don’t know how to take care of them.  Abuse is not an effective training technique for any animal, even if it may seem like it gets the most instantaneous results.  If you have questions about how to train your dog, there is a whole internet at your disposal, as well as books or even friends that you might ask for advice.  Dogs are not just property, regardless of what some little lawbook says.  They are not targets for your cathartic release caused by your own inability to deal with emotions appropriately.  They are capable of pleasure, pain and suffering, and this mental capacity of theirs needs to be respected.  The way we treat our pets is inextricable from the way we treat other people, and I think that most of us want to live in a world where we treat other people with respect, positive reinforcement, and patience, instead of abuse.  If you start working on ‘smaller’ habits such as treating your pets with more respect, you may start to see what personality these animals have behind their shells of fear, and you may even notice improvements in your own social life.

We all make mistakes and sometimes behave regrettably, embarrassingly, and inappropriately, but habits define you.  I hope this man changes his behavior towards his dog.  I wish I would have had the courage and wisdom to know what to say to this man to help him change his behavior.  I have made mistakes with pets and people in the past too, and all I can do now is try to care for the pets and people I have around me based on realizations I’ve had and things that I’ve learned.  All we can do is try to be the best selves we can be; just don’t underestimate the effort that you can put into trying.

Give your pets some extra attention tonight and thank them for foregoing their natural environments and some of their natural instincts in order to provide us with emotional support, entertainment, and love.

-Josh