Anthropo - what? The American Heritage Dictionary defines Anthropomorphism as: “Attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena.” So, why do you need to know this?
People often anthropomorphize their dogs. This means that they use human terms to describe how they think the dog feels and thinks. I often hear owners tell me that their dog is spiteful or mad at them. Or that he knows when he’s bad because he looks guilty. Trainers have referred to anthropomorphism as the Walt Disney Syndrome. Old Walt was probably the first guy to cash in on anthropomorphism. All of the animals were essentially little people in fur coats. They talk and sign and cry and laugh.
While I am not dismissing the fact that dogs have feelings, it is important to remember that because they are dogs, their thought process in much different from ours. So, the dog with a guilty look is usually responding to changes in the owner’s demeanor, or reacting to the fact that when the owner gets home, he usually yells at the dog for something.
The spiteful dog who pees or poops in the house either is not completely housetrained, stressed because he has separation anxiety, or was simply bursting because he really had to go!
It’s OK to say that Fido is happy when he’s playing fetch with you, or going to play with his favorite doggie friend. There is research that supports the theory that dogs can grieve the loss of favorite people or other pets and that they do indeed have feelings. But, it can be dangerous for our dogs to attribute human thought processes or too much human emotion to our canine friends. They are after all dogs, with all their wonderful dogginess, not little people in fur coats.
