The dangers of anthr...anthro...anthropomorphism...thinking your dog is like a real person.

The weather has been horrible today.  Scooby and I went to the appropriately named Happy Valley and there were lots of lovely playful dogs out, even though we were treated to gale force winds and a hail storm.

Where's Wally...Scooby?

Despite the weather Scooby had a great run around, up hills, through mud and in the river.  He was very happy, if a little ambitious as he started to chew the stick as it was still attached to the tree...

d'oh, Scooby is not the sharpest knife in the drawer and didn't win the battle against the tree...but he did have the final word...

On the way home we listened to an interesting discussion on the dangers of anthropomorphism on BBC Radio 4.  It was the Word Of Mouth programme Comparing the way we bring up children and train dogs .  There were lots of behaviouralists and Victoria Stilwell from It's Me or the Dog and even a woman who applied animal training techniques on her husband.

It was an interesting programme and the conclusions seemed to be:

• Childrens' ability to learn overtakes dogs by the time they are 5 years old so it's no good using clicker training on sprogs.  Or Bonio.
• Dogs don't get language.  At all.  They communicate through smells and then body language.
• Even though dogs don't really understand almost everything we say to them it's still ok to talk to them.  They might look like they're listening and understanding/empathising but really they're just responding to the sounds we're making.  They like listening to us and if they like us they might find our voice comforting.

You can listen again on www.bbc.co.uk/radio4

This reminded me of a recent study into contagious yawning.  Some studies had shown that dogs caught yawns from humans at a rate that exceeded contagious yawning for humans and chimpanzees.  The studies suggested that dogs have empathy, and this is special because it crosses the species divide....

But...Dr Sean O'Hara at The University of Salford has discovered that when testing dogs in conditions in which they are more relaxed, and with people they are more familiar with they don't catch yawns.  It looks like the contagious yawning of dogs has been de-bunked and the earlier studies' excessive yawns were a result of anxiety in the dogs, not empathy.

Dr Sean O'Hara says "Our pets probably don't feel for us the way we feel about them, they rely on us as the source of their needs and they are clever at using us to help them acquire what they need, but they needn't feel anything towards us despite us often thinking that they might care about us, or us wanting them to!  In contrast however we know people are often very emotionally-connected to their pets."

I don't think it's a bad thing to know and understand your dog more.  I do think it is a bad thing to assume they have human thought processes and qualities though.

( from gizmodo)

Personification and anthropomorphism isn't restricted to dogs



So, I'm still going to talk to Scooby.  I'm still not expecting a reply though.  And I accept that I'm more likely to catch a yawn from him that he is from me.

All this talk of yawning.......