'Pierre Cardog'

When you look at your pet, do you really see your pet or yourself?

Many years ago, I found myself in a fundraising dinner with people who dressed up their dogs with designer clothes and made them wear jewelry. In no time, I was surrounded by five women who asked each other about the latest dog fashion and the birthdays of their dogs so that they (the dogs) can “send” birthday cards to each other. They even send their dogs to dog hotels that had cable TV. At that time, I think I just came from a wildlife field trip where I learned how to respect bears and snakes as they are and so you can imagine how unhinged I was listening to conversation that had dogs and jewelry in the same sentence. I was the only Asian in the huddle and in what was probably an attempt on their part to be polite and inclusive, they asked me: “So how do you treat dogs in the Philippines?” Shunning all political correctness, I found myself saying, “We eat dogs in the Philippines.” There was dead silence, except for the sound of jaws dropping and blood draining from the women’s horrified faces. Then I excused myself from the huddle with a grin on my face.

I do not eat dogs so those who plan to e-mail me thinking I approve of this, please save your energy. Like many, I have a psychological barrier when it comes to dog or cat meat. But I have as much psychological resistance to treating dogs like humans. I guess it is because, well, they are not human and they are entitled to their own ways, just like any creature.

So why make your dog wear jackets like the one I once spotted that says “Pierre Cardog”? Because YOU find the humor in it. The dog has absolutely no clue nor does he care. But you do. Ancient thinkers have already noticed how humans bestow human attributes to non-humans and even inanimate objects and they called this tendency “anthropomorphism.” Recently, some psychologists got to thinking about why we do this and they published it in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. The scientists who did the study were Adam Waytz from Harvard University and Nicholas Epley and John T. Cacioppo from University of Chicago. It was reported everywhere in science news the past few days.

The researchers think that we anthropomorphize because we need to make familiar something so different from us so that we can relate to it. We seem to need to give a pet or even an inanimate object some human attributes so we can have some control over the situation. It is after all, a big world with so many things we cannot control. They think the motivations vary but they think one significant reason is loneliness. But they do not mean to say that all people who dress up their dogs are necessarily lonely.

But anthropomorphizing is not just about sheer control and treating loneliness. It also helps us become more humane in the way we treat other creatures because by giving them human attributes, they become worthy of care and consideration. It also helps us cope with uncontrollable phenomenon like storms. In a write-up on e! Science news last March 7 on this same study, the World Meteorological Association commented that the practice of giving names to weather disturbances “simplifies and facilitates effective communication to enhance public preparedness, media reporting, and the efficient exchange of information.” It was also interesting to find out from that said article storms used to be named after “saints, sailors’ girlfriends or disliked political figures.” Hmm, I do not think there will ever be enough storms to match the number of disliked political figures.

Anthropomorphizing helps us cope but I think we should also check our own attempts to “humanize” other creatures. It may prevent us from understanding who they really are. Dogs, for instance, belong to the same species as wolves. Dogs have only been domesticated 10,000 years ago and it takes more than 10,000 years for genes to forget their deep wild nature. When you dress your dog up in jeans and put a crown on him, you are dressing up a cute dog whose innermost biology is still largely wild so do not be surprised if, at the very least, he chews his designer clothes for no apparent reason. Remember the Killer Whale who recently killed a trainor in SeaWorld? Everyone was asking how this elegant creature in play land could attack the one who takes care of him? All the science opinions in the world were one voice in saying that the answer lies in two words: Killer, Whale. If you are going to dress up your dog, why stop there? You might as well have also a state-of-the-art dive suit for the Killer Whale in your swimming pool.

Imagine if some aliens abducted you and in their alienomorphizing, made you wear their funny clothes, at the very least. Wouldn’t you just yearn to go back to being you?

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