Living with dogs - a discussion of perspectives

stardogs

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#1
Saw this on a fb thread regarding a dog who died when he was left unattended in a car.

"My personal rule of thumb is if I wouldn't do this with a human child, then I shouldn't do it with my dog either. "

I have my own opinions, but wanted to hear what you all might say....
 

BostonBanker

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#3
My dog is not a child; what I would or wouldn't do with a kid is irrelevant in regards to what I do with my dogs.
 

Dizzy

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#4
My dogs aren't humans, they don't sit at the table and they don't have their own bedrooms etc etc.

But at some level, I agree. I don't really treat my dogs as sub human, and I have the same philosophies about dogs training as I do rearing children.
 

CaliTerp07

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#5
Hyperbole, but the general sentiment resonates. I wouldn't allow my human child to skip school because I felt ill and didn't want to go, but I'll skip dog class for that reason. I wouldn't put a bark collar on my human child when they were yelling too much, but I do it to my dog. I wouldn't feed my kid out of a bowl on the floor, but my dog gets kibble out of a container on the carpet all the time.

That being said, there are a lot of things I would do to a child that I wouldn't do to a dog. I absolutely would punish them for things that happened when I wasn't there. My dog gets into the food on the counter when I'm in the other room? My fault. My kid gets into the food on the counter? Their fault, and I'm going to sit them down and explain why that was a poor choice and what the consequences are. Kids have a mental capacity dogs don't have, and the way you treat them should take that into consideration.

Bottom line: Treat each with kindness and respect. Pretty clear that leaving a dog in a hot car is not kind.
 

Whisper

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#6
Saw this on a fb thread regarding a dog who died when he was left unattended in a car.

"My personal rule of thumb is if I wouldn't do this with a human child, then I shouldn't do it with my dog either. "

I have my own opinions, but wanted to hear what you all might say....
Um. No.
I wouldn't put my kid's bowl on the floor, but I do for my dogs.
I wouldn't lock a kid in a crate overnight with some toys and things to chew on, but I do with Fable.
I wouldn't let my kids eat horse manure.
I wouldn't shrug it off if my baby ate a dead rat.
I wouldn't feed a child raw meat.


I think you see where I'm going. Children =/= dogs.
 

Whisper

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#7
Oh, and as far of my view of dogs. . .yes, like with a child, I am responsible for them and they deserve to be treated with compassion, but that's about where the similarity ends.

I love my dogs with all my heart. I think more highly of them than most people. They're not just pets, they're family and friends. They are not children, though, should not be treated as such, and I like 'em a whole lot better than kids. ;)

ETA: Oops, sorry for the double post. I meant to edit my first one.
 

Toller_08

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#8
My dogs are animals, not children, and I treat my dogs as such. I don't pretend my dogs are humans, or compare them to children. However, I do believe that there are some similarities between how one should treat a dog vs. a child/any human being. It comes down to sense and compassion for me.

If the weather was such that I would be uncomfortable sitting in a car, or that I'd question whether I would leave a child in a car, then I certainly would not leave my dog in the car either. If the car is too hot, then it's too hot, regardless of whether it's a dog or a person in the car. It shouldn't matter what the species is.

And when it comes to training or just living with a dog, I try to approach it the same way as how I would want to be treated in many ways. Not identically, since you can't very well have a conversation and reason with a dog, or expect them to think logically and know better, but I mean more in the aspect of: If I want them to work, then they should be rewarded. I would not work without a pay cheque. And if they do something inappropriate, there will likely be a consequence. I try to be fair. But I keep things species appropriate, if that makes sense. While I feel some of the same philosophies should apply, I'm not going to use the exact same techniques on a dog as I would a child. Dogs learn way differently than humans and vise versa.
 

Whisper

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#10
I don't even get why children are brought into the equation in the first place. Don't leave your dog in a hot car because they are living, breathing, feeling animals. Why do kids come up at all?
 

Whisper

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#12
Isn't that basically what a crib is?
I thought about that when I was writing, and I came to conclusion of no.
Cribs are not usually:
-Metal
-Floor level
-Un-cushioned (Fable gets hot and likes to push her bed away to sleep on the metal floor)
-Bolted shut on all sides
-Lived in forever. A baby will grow out of a crib. Picture me putting an 8 year old child in a crate.
 
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#13
It's a bit over the top, yea.

If it were qualified to specific contexts regarding health and safety like "If I thought the car was too hot for a child to wait alone for a few minutes, I wouldn't leave a dog alone either" then I could probably roll with it. But as a general blanket statement, just... no.
 

Xandra

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#14
Hyperbole, but the general sentiment resonates. I wouldn't allow my human child to skip school because I felt ill and didn't want to go, but I'll skip dog class for that reason. I wouldn't put a bark collar on my human child when they were yelling too much, but I do it to my dog. I wouldn't feed my kid out of a bowl on the floor, but my dog gets kibble out of a container on the carpet all the time.

That being said, there are a lot of things I would do to a child that I wouldn't do to a dog. I absolutely would punish them for things that happened when I wasn't there. My dog gets into the food on the counter when I'm in the other room? My fault. My kid gets into the food on the counter? Their fault, and I'm going to sit them down and explain why that was a poor choice and what the consequences are. Kids have a mental capacity dogs don't have, and the way you treat them should take that into consideration.

Bottom line: Treat each with kindness and respect. Pretty clear that leaving a dog in a hot car is not kind.
I agree with this. Different goals with kids and dogs.

When you have a dog it's basically just a case of maintaining it for the duration of its lifespan. When you have a kid, there is some maintenance involved but you also have a huge responsibility to encourage their mental/emotional/social growth so they turn into happy, functional, independent people. So of course that's going to affect how and why you punish them, the amount of freedom they get etc.

In my case I'll add that I just flat out don't value animals as much as children. If your animal is sick and you put it down, fine. You'd better go to the ends of the earth to fix your kid though. And probably I would be more cautious and worry more over my kid (if I had one) than my dog. But when it comes to things like hot cars... yeah if it's too hot for your child it's too hot for your dog as well!
 

stardogs

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#15
It's a bit over the top, yea.

If it were qualified to specific contexts regarding health and safety like "If I thought the car was too hot for a child to wait alone for a few minutes, I wouldn't leave a dog alone either" then I could probably roll with it. But as a general blanket statement, just... no.
My thoughts, too! I think too many people actually do dogs a disservice by looking at them like humans - there are just too many differences!
 

GoingNowhere

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#16
Meh, on a very basic " we are all living things and this living thing is in my care" level, I agree with it. Don't leave your dog in a roasting car. Don't hit your dog when you're mad at him or her. Do teach your dog manners for both home and public. Don't forget to feed your dog. Everything applies to kids as well.

But then I think it is hugely oversimplified and obviously there are things that I would do to a dog, but not to a child and vice versa. Namely, physical differences, different mental capacities, and just different general social norms.

I should say, I do often wonder about some of the "child equipment" vs "dog equipment." Here's just a few:

Put your kid on a harness and leash? - WRONG. Make him or her wear a fuzzy monkey backpack with a long tail that you can hold onto - go for it.

Put your kid in a dog crate when you can't keep an eye on them? - WRONG. Put them in a brightly colored soft sided "play" pen? - Totally okay.

Clicker train your kid? - WRONG. Give them "gold stars" whenever they do something good - not a problem.
:rofl1:


As a sidenote - I'm pretty sure one of my pastimes when I was 8 was locking my brother in the dog crate and seeing how long it took him to escape. :rofl1: Sometimes I'd give him cheezits and chips through the bars. No worries - he turned out okay.
 

Whisper

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#17
GoingNowhere, LOL! I had my mom lock me in Fable's crate. I wish I could say the time I was in a dog crate was when I was a little kid, but nope, 20 years old. :rofl1:
 

Danefied

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#18
Saw this on a fb thread regarding a dog who died when he was left unattended in a car.

"My personal rule of thumb is if I wouldn't do this with a human child, then I shouldn't do it with my dog either. "

I have my own opinions, but wanted to hear what you all might say....
Well... I do leave my kids in the car, but only if there is a dog in there with them too. Dogs I leave alone in the car. How does all that figure in? :D

In a general sense, I parent my young kids, teach teenagers, deal with cranky co-workers, and train dogs all based on the same principles of OC, that stress and learning are related, that no-one responds well to threats, and that you manage what the child or dog is not ready for yet. Very simplistic explanation, but there are indeed parallels in how dogs and humans respond to "training".
 

BostonBanker

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#19
I don't even get why children are brought into the equation in the first place. Don't leave your dog in a hot car because they are living, breathing, feeling animals. Why do kids come up at all?
That's basically my point; I wouldn't leave my dogs in a car that was going to overheat because they are dogs. I also wouldn't throw them in a den of tigers, tie them to the back of my car, or use them for target shooting practice...because they are dogs. I also wouldn't do those things with children, cats, or okapi.

My dogs sat in the car for over an hour today when it was 80 degrees while I rode. I put them in their wire crates, parked in the shade, and left all the doors open. The temperature in the car was the same as it was outside in the shade. Neither dog was panting or even remotely bothered when I rode by at the end of my ride. I wouldn't leave a kid in the car seat unattended that long. Not because they are a dog, but because they are a kid.
 

PlottMom

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#20
Count me into the "that makes no sense" club - I wouldn't leave my baby in the car on an evening where the temperature was perfectly cool so I could run into the store (and the poor baby cried for a while! We were there, and stayed in the lot in our car until someone came back for her :/ ) but I do it with the dogs all the time. We have a jeep wrangler - with all the windows out ill take them out in the summer, too... they love going places.
 

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