What I Need to Know about Living I Learned from My Dogs
By: H.D. Johns, Ph.D.
All of the books on dog training remind me to remember that my dogs think of me as
another dog. A lot of the success of training depends on whether they see me as a
superior dog or a subordinate dog. If they see me as top-dog they will tend to obey my
commands, come when they are called and want to be with me. If they see me as an
under-dog they will be less responsive to my controls and may ignore my overtures. In all
of our interactions they will deal with me as though I were another dog.
An old Russian proverb says that if an ox thinks of God, he thinks of him as a bigger ox.
That may explain why when children try to conceptualize God they imagine him as a
male parent or as an old man with a beard. It also may explain something of the way
human beings see other human beings: that is, we tend to think of other people as having
the same thoughts, feelings and behavior that we have, and we can't imagine why
everyone hasn't done as we would have done in a given situation. In other words, we tend
to think of other people as "other dogs."
As a psychotherapist I am often confronted with a person's behavior which, to me is,
obviously self-destructive. Why does a person repeat old behavior patterns that
precipitate trouble for him or herself as well as for others? Why, for example, does a
woman who divorces one wife-beater select another abusive male as her next spouse? I
wouldn't do that. In order to be of help I must see that person as different from me.
I dislike cluttered kitchens. I can tolerate some stains on my counter-tops so long as they
are kept free of unnecessary things. My friend, on the other hand, doesn't seem to mind
clutter but is a fiend for cleanliness. We clash because neither of us considers that we are
people with different experiences in our backgrounds who feel and react differently to
stimuli such as clutter and cleanliness.
Then too, like dogs, we tend to think in terms of a hierarchy of importance and power. In
psychological terms this is known as transference and counter-transference. We put
people in power categories. Some people we see as authority figures and others we see as
secondary to ourselves and treat them accordingly.
I take a reverse lesson from my dogs. I understand (usually) that they are dogs, more
interested in food than I am --- More interested in chasing squirrels than I am --- More
creatures of conditioning than I am. I apply that lesson to my friends and loved ones.
They are not made in my exact image. They are different from me in the ways they think
and feel and act.
The lesson is that there is no one else in the world exactly like me. So, if I tend to think of
people as "other dogs," I need to consider, at least, that there are many different breeds of
dogs with different characteristics. So I will not expect a Chow-chow to think and act like
a Golden Retriever!
Excerpted from:
What I Need to Know about Living I Learned from My Dogs
Copyright (c) 1998, H. D. Johns, Ph.D.