Dogs As Masters

Today I read a story on NPR’s web site titled “How Dogs Evolved into ‘Our Best Friends.’”  The expert interviewed was Mark Derr, who wrote “From Wolves to Our Best Friends.” 

Derr discounts both of the main theories on the domestication of wolves into dogs: 1) humans domesticated wolves that hung out around human groups to scavenge our refuse and 2) humans tamed wolf pups and kept them. Derr instead argues that wolves and humans, as two equal beings who saw the benefit of hunting together selected each other because of the mutual hunting advantages.  As wolves worked and lived with humans, the wolves eventually became wolf-dogs and then the pets, hunters, and the all-around helper-companions we know as dogs today.

I rather like Derr’s argument about how dogs and our relationships to them have evolved.  But I am not sure I buy the argument that today they are our companions or merely our best friends.  In fact, I’d say dogs are now our masters, not the other way around.  Sure, I know people often spend a lot of money for their dogs.  And for veterinary care. And for food and grooming and toys.  Dogs even allow us the illusion we are in charge.

For example, give a dog a walk, make a friend.  Give a dog two walks and he is your BFF.  Take the walk three times together and you have created a canine entitlement.  No longer are you giving your dog a treat.  Rather you are fulfilling your purpose in his life.

Think about it: who is feeding whom?  Who is taking whom to medical care?  And back to the walking thing.  For every dog I have “owned,” once I walked that dog three days in a row at about the same time of day, I no longer had an option to sit on the couch and let the dog out in the yard.  You would think after this same experience with multiple dogs I would have learned something.  But no.  New puppy or adopted older dog, I take him or her for a walk.  I forget the “three-day-in-a-row” rule.  And it happens again.  I am the slave, he is the master.

Suddenly, the walk becomes a canine right.  A right that inclement weather, inconvenience, or a broken foot doesn’t change. 

On the other hand, would I get out every day and exercise in the park if my dog didn’t insist?  At least my dog, I mean master, is taking as good care of my health as I am of his.  I just hope we are close to the summit of our mutually-evolving relationship.