Do people use dogs to fill emotional needs?

[Anonymous]

What's wrong with taking your dog on vacation if you are going to dog friendly places? And have a small enough dog that it can ride on your lap on the plane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get it. People don't want to hear that "loving" their dogs is in any way harming them. It is easier to keep on using the dog.

Or we could eat them?
Why not? We eat cows, chicken, turkey, lamb, pigs. And pigs and cows are way smarter than dogs. We keep those animals, raise them from birth, and then kill them when we get hungry. At least the dog gets to live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the doodle video, again cute. But, that person is a photographer who has specifically clipped together a video that would show exactly what she wanted it to show. Even with very short clips, there were still plenty of tense scenes...

She says in the video that he zooms around. That's anxiety. There are several points in the video where he has a tight, closed mouth and lip licks when they interact with him. At one point the little boy runs by and the dog whips around.

I'm not saying this is an aggressive dog.

PJs and birthday parties and treating dogs like human children, it's a lot of pressure for the dog... This doodle personally looks a little anxious to me. All the video editing, carefully chosen pictures and music are there to create a story.

Sometimes there are unicorns who would do well with this. Most dogs would not.

+1.

My BIL caved to get his newlywed wife to "shut up" about having a baby. It's a nightmare and randomly attacks people. It seems anxious and traumatized from running away from their toddler now. It also doesn't enjoy being dressed up. SO had some words and at least intervened about the overfeeding, which is definitely an emotional issue on their part. Interestingly, the overfeeding/force-feeding was exactly was BIL's mother and grandmother did to him. They said it "shows that he loves them". Needless to say, he became obese for a while as a child before joining a sports league. It has all been very weird to me.

I have seen a lot of people get a dog or other animal as a placeholder for a human child or as a test run before committing to having one with their SO but all animals deserve full commitment regardless. They also deserve basic respect so they don't feel like they need to escalate to immediate biting or scratching because their other signals have been ignored. I've also seen people get animals to borderline hoarding levels because they have abandonment issues that haven't been addressed. It's very sad for everyone involved.

Yes! Ugh, the overfeeding until obesity is such a disturbing trend.

[Anonymous]

I collect pets as child substitutes now my children are growing up, OP. It’s definitely to fulfill an emotional need, and it works!

My uncle rides to hounds and has a howling pack of dogs. Not quite sure where hunting lies on the “need” spectrum...