Preface: Molly is a very common dog name. The other day, I was walking my dog, and a woman called out, "Molly!" and I was momentarily confused until I realized she was walking a dog as well.
Now that I've (my family's) had this insanely hyper chihuahua (female, and yes, spayed) for over a month, I've had some thoughts on the status of man-dog relations, specifically toward that of walking on a leash.
Primary question: Do dogs enjoy it?
I mean, it seems like my dog does. Every time I take out the leash, it's practically jumping three feet in the air out of excitement.
Chihuahuas are naturally pretty defensive. And they seem to obey the inverse rule of barking: the smaller the dog, the louder the bark. And so when we pass other dogs, I need to be extra careful that Molly doesn't get within 10 feet, or else she will start barking her head off in dog (probably the canine equivalent of screaming "Bloody Murder!" at 90+ decibels.)
Over the course of walking my dog through the neighborhood, I've been surprised at just how many dogs and pets people own. I hear barking everywhere--through the fence, through doors, etc. I don't know if you know this, but it's pretty ridiculous just how many people are walking their dogs at 6:30PM on a weekday (in a suburban neighborhood).
Molly runs pretty fast. And by run I mean I have to sprint to stay on her pace. Unfortunately, this inevitably results in a very sad phenomenon: leash pulling.
It's not as though I am a malicious individual out to torture sentient creatures near and far (I am a vegetarian). But the tried and true fact is: I CANNOT run as fast as Molly, for as long as Molly. So what do I do? I control her, not by pulling on the leash, but by the simple existence of the leash having been there in the first place. Or rather, she is controlled.
Now I do admit that there has to be room for discipline in every dog's development. It is practical. It is just that of the thousands of years we have had to control dogs' gait, nothing has quite replaced the leash. It merits being a little sad about it once in a while, however little.
Now the thought experiment: would we enjoy being tied to a leash every time to walk around the neighborhood? The caveat that most will raise here is, "But we aren't dogs--dogs aren't as important as humans." True, I agree, but that doesn't mean we should give up caring altogether.
The way I see it, the leash is a necessary tool. But like tools we should it judiciously and thoughtfully, and like punishment, we should realize it cannot serve as an all-purpose solution. The moral behavior, it seems to me, is to at least have qualms about the use of the leash--we must not take for granted our dominion over the dog. Even though we have the power to use force and control lesser beings, we lose moral authority when we justify the use of force as virtue of having been born in the genus Homo.
How about it? Should the distinction of species matter in regard to how we treat living beings that can feel pain? Do animals matter at all? Should their pain even matter?
3 comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZXOfSN1sVc
Positive reinforcement (treat and clicker training) only. Leashes are outdated.
You might actually be the first person on the Internet to say that or put those words in that order. I searched the sentence "leashes are outdated" on Google and got 0 hits. Try searching it yourself. Every one else in my neighborhood uses a leash, and I live in a well-to-do suburb.
Nevertheless, the video was pretty awesome. I don't know what you're smoking when you say leashes are outdated. Maybe for you it is, but that doesn't in any way abnegate the fact that millions of Americans use them. If millions of Americans smoked crack in the 80s and still do now, does that mean crack is outdated? If you don't give us the prior context of dog leashing, then I'm afraid semantically and logically your statement makes zero, if not negative sense.
Your comment was thought-provoking, however, and this is actually an old post from Facebook notes written in 2009. My parents don't walk Molly with a leash anymore actually, and I'm usually away for my studies.
Tell us about your pets, if you will, and if you've trained them like the Border collie in that video. Don't presume to tell others how to treat their pets when we have no clue how you treat your own.
Out, shouldauld
"Leashes are outdated" is no more arbitrary than "the leash is a necessary tool" or "dogs aren't as important as humans." Here, the video and your article can serve as context; the video and the article present possible modes of control. Either one or the other method can be used in isolation, or they can be used together in varying degrees. The statement "leashes are outdated" suggests that taking into account just these two modes, and possibly the auxiliaries to leashes such as prong collars, that this relatively newer form of control, positive reinforcement, renders leashes obsolete if practiced properly.
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