Maria wrote what I believe is an important piece about dogs on her blog yesterday.

I recommend it; it’s called I Am Not My Dogs Mommy.

It got me thinking, which is my job, about the transformation of dogs in America into moving objects for needy people, as they become furbabies and, to some people, the equivalent of human children.

Maria was upset because a temporary vet at our veterinarian kept referring to her as Fate’s “mommy,” which she found both annoying and condescending.

She wrote that if she wanted to be a mommy, she would have had kids; what she wanted was what she got: a dog.

There is a lot of wisdom in that, and it says a lot about how far over the cliff many Americans have gone in figuring out just what the role of a dog should be in their lives, how much it will cost, and whether or not it is good for them.

I’ve been researching and writing about this issue for decades, and guess what? I have some ideas to share. One is that I’m not my dog’s Daddy. And that my dogs are not children. My dogs are dogs, and I will always let them be dogs.

They used to call this anthropomorphizing animals – projecting our emotions and words onto them.

But that label doesn’t work anymore; it’s bigger than that.

It’s more like another tragic causality of corporatism, greed, human need, and loneliness; there is nothing in the world these people won’t ruin for fatter profits.

They have helped completely transform dogs into something that is neither natural, real, nor healthy for them. Sometimes, we can love something too much. We are forgetting what they really are.

For many Americans, dogs are no longer dogs. They are part of our emotional and often troubled DNA.

Make no mistake about it. The Corporate Nation has figured out that there is a staggering amount of money regarding the emotionalizing of dogs and their evolution into faux children and personal (and helpless)  therapists.

I understand dog love. And I don’t judge people or tell them tell them what to do and feel.

I only speak for myself.

To me, and for all the mega-hype that swirls around them like some kind of runaway tornado, dogs are simple, elemental animals.

I don’t believe they can ever live up to our epidemic and steadily soaring expectations of them. I have the feeling we are overwhelming them at times.

They lots of reasons for this.

We are getting disconnected from each other, walled off by asocial and antisocial media. Our political system seems to be falling apart.

Humans are becoming more screen-centered and suspicious of each other and less like to have human interactions or a sense of community.

We are fighting with one another all the time. Understandably, many would turn to dogs for emotional support, companionship, and comfort.

I could never blame them for looking for the support and comfort it is hard for us to find from other people. More and more people are turning to dogs and cats for the things they used to get from other humans.  You can’t find connection and community sitting at those screens all night.

Dog food and animal pharmaceuticals are happy to help us deal with the fact that we are driving our dogs crazy, blaming them for the pressure they are under, and increasingly drugging and warehousing them into complacency.

The more anxious and disconnected we get, the more we desperately want animals to comfort us.

I know, I’ve done it. I try very hard not to do it.

I hear from vets that many dogs are straining to meet their new work, this growing importance, and ever-riding expectations – trying to do things dogs have never done and cannot do: make humans feel happier about their anxieties and fill the holes in their lives.

That’s why more than half a million dogs are taking Prozac because we don’t really know how to talk to them.

For all but a few years of their wonderous history with humans, no dog ever needed a sedative. It was unthinkable even a decade or two ago.

Millions of dogs take anti-depressants to calm them down and make them controllable. Dog training in America is a catastrophe; pills are easier.

Dogs pay for this remarkable evolution in numerous ways, from overfeeding to being drugged rather than taught.

According to the Washington Post, eight percent of the 60 to 70 million owned dogs are on Prozac or other anti-depressants and sedatives. That’s millions of dogs.

In 2022 Americans spent $136.8 billion on their pets, up 10.68% from 2021 ($123.6 billion).

Dog owners spend an average of $730 a year on their dogs. The corporate nation has struck again, turning our dogs into moving objects, children on four legs, furbabies, and rainbow bridges.

My family had a dog named King when I was growing up. It cost nothing to have him.

We spent absolutely nothing on him.

He ate table scraps, chased mail carriers, and never went to a vet except for free rabies shots which were free.

My father paid $5 for him at the city pound, and he slept in the basement or the garage every night and lived a long and healthy life. He never set foot inside our house, and no one ever equated him with a human child.

Like other artists and writers, I work alone.

It can get eerily quiet and lonely when you work alone. Almost all of us creatives have dogs that we depend on for companionship and learn to love. We get very close to our dogs and need them.

But I do care about boundaries. I have never seen my dogs as children or compared the experience of living with them to human children.

I admit I’m sensitive on the subject.

My first wife and I  lost two children shortly after we were married, and it is unbearable for me to have people so casually and without hesitation compare their cats and dogs to having a human child.

It is still unbearable for me to think about them or write about them.

I shudder to think what message comparing dogs to children does to our actual children.

Dogs have taught me a lot. One of the first things I learned from them is that they are not people.

They are not children. That’s why I love them so much. If Zinnia were a human being or child, I wouldn’t want her hanging out with me while I write, not even for 10 minutes.

She is the dog I need, and I am the human she needs.

Together we create beautiful contact with each other. I give her what she wants – food, health care, exercise, attention, and love – she gives me what I need and wants – companionship, love, and many good reasons to get out of my office and into the world, from therapy work to walks in the woods to sitting in an Adirondack chair and dozing with her at my feet.

I can’t tell you what it means to have her lying behind me while I write, how often I read down to scratch her head or get my hand licked.

No child can do that.

I don’t need to make her more than she is.

What she is is a dog. All I want her to do is meld into my life, sit with me while I work, walk with me while I walk, and love me in the way only dogs can – simply and without agenda. We never argue or disappoint one another.

I don’t want to be a dog’s Daddy or get another child. Dogs are not my therapist, best friend, or eternal companion. I don’t want them on vacation when I go away; we deserve a break from one another. They don’t need to come with me to an Airbnb.

Dogs are about sharing our lives, marking the passage of time, learning to be kind and merciful, and perhaps most of all, getting the love we need. I think of it this way: we walk together in our world.

That’s enough.

I understand that Zinnia doesn’t speak or understand English as a language and cannot understand the words I throw at her. I believe that she does not think like me in any way; her emotions and thoughts are animal emotions and thoughts, not human.

I have learned that yelling at her in anger or getting frustrated with her – that’s what humans do, not dogs – does not help her understand me or know what I am saying. It only makes her frightened and confused.

I have to communicate with her in other ways – voice, hand and body signals, food, patience, clarity, and repetition. And love, always love. Dogs love being treated this way, but very few humans, including me, are good at it.

Dogs have taught me to shed my anger and frustration. It hardly ever worked with them and usually got them excited. My love for them has made me a better human. My way of communicating with them includes food and calm, and the willingness to work with them daily and for all their lives.

Unlike humans, dogs don’t live long. I am sorry to lose them. Losing a child is not like losing them. I would instead love another one that mourns the ones I lost.

Anyone who has lost a child knows better than to make cruel and insensitive comparisons to losing a dog, an animal, not a person.

We have no idea what dogs are feeling; we only know what they can show us – fear, hope, eagerness, affection, and adaptability. We have no idea what they think regarding our human language and understanding because they have neither our language nor consciousness.

Like Maria, I love dogs because they are dogs, not because they are humans on four legs and with fur. I hope I never see them in any other way; there is purity and dignity to them.

Dogs have taught me a lot. They have made me aware of many of my flaws and shortcomings. To live lovingly with them, I had to change. And I did. Dogs have greatly enriched my life because I want to care for them and desire them to live with me safely and positively.

I will do almost anything to have that, even change lifelong old and bad habits.

I will never forget an excellent trainer’s challenge when I yelled at one of my border collies to slow and sit: “Listen,” she said, “if you want a better dog, you will need to be a better human.” I have never forgotten that. I know I have to be a better man to have the dogs I want.

Amen, I am still trying.

I’ve learned that most people disagree with my writing on this subject and have been writing for years. I never want to condemn my dogs to wait an eternity for me on that rainbow bridge. I want them to have complete and happy, and independent lives. I like that for me as well.

I’m okay with that.

I’m with Maria, with one difference.

I have a child and would never demean or trivialize her by comparing her to a Lab.