“Anthropomorphization” refers to the human tendency to assign human characteristics, emotions, intentions, or behavior to non-human entities. It’s a very common cognitive process that helps us make sense of our world by relating our familiar experiences to the unfamiliar. When it comes to animals, especially pets, humans tend to use anthropomorphization to help us empathize with their non-human experiences.

Should we, though?

In the positive training world, we try to warn clients away from anthropomorphizing their dogs, especially during training sessions. A lot of people mistake the human-like personalities they’ve invented for their dog for reality, and it informs the way they perceive their behavior during training: “My dog is just too stubborn,” or “My dog won’t listen because he’s angry with me.” 

These kind of thought patterns can prevent owners from understanding that, if the dog is struggling, the problem is not the dog’s personality; something about the setup is preventing their dog from learning. Maybe the environment is too distracting or our reinforcement isn’t rewarding enough. Maybe we’re moving too quickly for the dog, and he’s become confused. Maybe we’re been working for too long, and the dog just needs a break! Positive training is, by definition, rewarding and fun. If the dog is unfocused, slow, or displaying stress signals, it’s the humans’ responsibility to reassess and change something. There’s no need, at any point, to assign human intentions to the dog’s behavior.

But anthropomorphization is hard to avoid. It’s fun, and it feels good to pretend that we know exactly what our dog is thinking. We narrate their thoughts in funny voices, we interpret their facial expressions the way we’d interpret a human’s, and we hold conversations with them as if they’re capable of understanding. All of these things strengthen our sense of connection with our dog.

Dog trainers do it, too. I myself am guilty of one of the ultimate sins of anthropomorphization: discounting my dog’s intelligence. Jesse hates all training activities that require any amount of critical thinking. He doesn’t want to play guessing games! He doesn’t want to solve a puzzle! He wants to be shown what to do so he can get his reward!

Now, I’m never so rude as to call him “stupid.” Instead, I say, “He’s not an intellectual,” and even though I know dog intelligence isn’t simple or easily quantified, describing him in that way limits my expectations of him. It makes me think he couldn’t possibly figure out complex, multi-step behaviors that I might try to teach if only I had a “smart” dog like an Australian shepherd or a border collie.

Yesterday, Jesse did something that proved my limited view of him entirely wrong.

Ever since the halcyon year when we had an active BarkBox subscription, Jesse is absolutely convinced that every package that comes to the door belongs to him. Most of the packages are for my mother, who hates seeing Jesse disappointed, so she’s taken to receiving the packages, retrieving her items from inside, then re-packing them with Jesse’s toys hidden inside and letting him go to town finding his toys.

It’s excellent enrichment for a dog that loves dissection, especially if the package is filled with things like newspaper or cardboard that he gets to dig through and destroy. (Warning: If you try this, stay away from easily-swallowable packing materials like packing peanuts or styrofoam!)

| Jesse enjoying his package.

Yesterday, Jesse tore open the box and dug around in the fillings, finally emerging victorious with his ball. He laid down and chewed it for a few moments. Then he got up, grabbed the ball, walked back over to the cardboard box still overflowing with packing materials–and dropped the ball back inside.

My jaw dropped!

All on his own, without help or direction from any of his human friends, Jesse figured out that he could play the game again. He dug around in the box for another few minutes while I silently watched, ripping through newspaper and cardboard to find his ball buried beneath the mass. 

You might think that’s unimpressive, but it’s actually fairly complicated reasoning. Jesse had to 1) remember that the box game existed and was fun to play, 2) observe that the box was still full of packing supplies to “bury” the ball, and 3) understand that dropping the ball back in the box would “bury it” again. Multi-step reasoning is hard even for dogs that enjoy reasoning tasks. I never expected to see my dog, who acts like he’s going to pass away if I ask him to think for a single moment, would–or even could–do something like that!

But just like humans contain an infinite personality that only gets shown to the outside world in bits and pieces, our dogs contain similar multitudes. We anthropomorphize our dogs with labels to make them easier for us to understand, but in doing that, we limit how much we can understand them. 

What if we watched instead of labelling? What if we let our dogs dictate who they are, instead of deciding for them? We might see that our “stupid” dogs contain intelligences that we had no idea were there.

Are you ready to learn what kind of intelligences your dog might contain? If so, fill out my training inquiry form to begin your training journey!