Dog Talk with Uncle Matty: Emotipets
By Matthew Uncle Matty Margolis Maybe it all started with Snoopy. The temper tantrums, the hysterical cackling laughter at his own jokes, that conniving competitive edge that was always there between he and his "master," Charlie Brown. Or maybe Charles M. Schulz was like the rest of us in our tendency to project emotions and ulterior motives onto our dogs.
Since the advent of the ad industry, advertisers have successfully attributed emotions to dogs in an effort to convince consumers to open their wallets. One of the best examples is a commercial spot on YouTube that features a dog who becomes devastated upon spotting his "girl" with another dog. Stumbling onto the horrific scene of the two of them together, the emotionally distraught canine heads for the nearest five-lane freeway to put a permanent end to his misery. But, alas, his plan is foiled. By an awesome set of Bridgestone tires.
Before holistic dog food, there was Chuck Wagon. They ran an ad in the 70s, narrated by the gentlest of grandfatherly voices, starring a cute little pup chasing after a wagon full of chow. The spot closed with a voiceover reassuring dog owners: "Chuck Wagon. Next to you, what he likes best and needs most."
Last year, AT&T ran an ad for its 3G network that highlighted the use of online social media in tandem with its high-speed network to return a lost pup to its adorable young owner. The final frame shows the dog bolting into the child's arms.
And Travelers Insurance had a runaway YouTube hit with their "Prized Possession" commercial featuring a neurotic dog that just can't get a good night's sleep until his bone is safely in their hands.
The projection of human emotions onto dogs is much more than a capitalist idea. Dog owners do it all the time in everyday life. This isn't to say that dogs have no feelings. But the canine set of emotions is much more limited and much less complex than ours.
I get calls on a daily basis from people who are sure their dogs are out to get them:
There was the woman whose pooch had decimated thousands of dollars worth of Persian rugs. She was convinced the dog was displeased with the arrangement of furniture in that room.
There was the man whose dog had urinated on his carpets every day for two years without fail. When I asked him whether he had housebroken his dog, he said, "No. But that's not it. He's angry."
And there are too many couples to list who are convinced that their jealousy-crazed dog is out for their significant other. Territorial? Maybe. Jealous? It's unlikely any dog, no matter how seemingly intelligent or manipulative, is capable of pulling an OJ.
So if your dog uses the business section of your newspaper as a toilet, it's not because he's fed up with Wall Street or stressed over the S&P Index. It's either because he was paper-trained, or because he was never trained.
Emoticons make it possible to attribute tone to an otherwise emotionless e-mail or text, making it easy to eliminate confusion. But attributing human emotion or motive to a dog only creates it.
Woof!
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Dog trainer Matthew "Uncle Matty" Margolis is co-author of 18 books about dogs, a behaviorist, a popular radio and television guest, and host of the PBS series "WOOF! It's a Dog's Life!" Read all of Uncle Matty's columns at the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com, and visit him at http://www.unclematty.com. Send your questions to dearuncle.gazette@unclematty.com or by mail to Uncle Matty at P.O. Box 3300, Diamond Springs, CA 95619.
Copyright 2010 Creators Syndicate Inc.
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