As long as I’ve been writing about dogs and animals and researching their lives, I’ve been butting heads with people I believe consistently confuse what dogs want and need with what people need and want and who subject pets to cruel, stressful, and empty lives so they can feel good about themselves.

The emotionalizing of dogs (and cats) is a sad and selfish shift in our long relationship with them. We are turning them into mutants, pretend children with no purpose but to make us feel good.

Julie Lovine, an Animals And Society Institute board member, lit me up this week with a piece in the New York Times entitled Dog Parks Are Great For People. Too Bad They’re Terrible for Dogs.

Lovine knows dogs and has done some thorough research. She documents the trouble for dogs in dog parks (the number of parks in America is skyrocketing; it increased by 40 percent last year alone.)

The emotionalizing of animals is endangering them everywhere. The more we love them, the more harm we seem determined to do to them.

I see this when people keep animals alive because they don’t want them to die and claim it’s noble.

I see them in animal rights groups nationwide when they seek to remove elephants, carriage horses, ponies, and domesticated work animals from people and send them off to die or wither away, dumping manure and boring themselves to death.

 

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that enormous working horses who have worked with people for thousands of years and built our cities will not live long in America or anywhere else if they don’t have good work to do with responsible people.

Any knowledgeable horse trainer or equine vet will tell you that the New York Carriage Horses are the luckiest in the world, not the most abused. This is brushed aside by the animal rights groups in New York, who gather regularly to frighten children riding in the carriages and call them enablers of cruelty.

When I went to New York to see the horses myself, I was saddened to learn that the animal rights groups seeking to banish them knew nothing about them and cared less about the truth. The horses look great and healthy in every way.

The animal rights groups fighting to ban the horses from the city believe the horses would be better off dead than pulling light carriages through a gorgeous park in good weather. They have killed carriage horses all over the country.

They learned how to lie long before Donald Trump showed up. And they raise a lot of money with their lies.

Our notions of animal welfare have lost all perspective and reason in the epidemic emotionalizing of animals and the extreme policies and politics of the established national animal rights groups.

The poor working animals have no advocates.

They are disappearing from our world. These national organizations are skilled at creating hysteria and raising money. Still, they know little about working horses or other working animals and their lives and needs.

Many dog owners are eager to love their dogs but not interested in learning what they need.

I see a sad shift when a woman proudly tells me she loves her cat so much that she has gone bankrupt to keep her kidney-diseased pet alive by giving her vet $20,000 over two years in medical treatment.

She thought I would be impressed. I was horrified for her and for her cat, that poor animal.

I see them in a person I know well who told me that having a dog or cat is like having a human child. I lost two children in early life and was crushed by her mindless and cruel comments.

The love of animals should never be measured in money.

Dogs don’t care about money. They need love and attention. Pain in sick animals should never be permitted for months and years to benefit selfish people. Not for one day.

Any vet on earth has stories to tell of people who subject their peers to endless suffering and pain because they think it is merciful somehow to keep them alive.  

And because they would miss them.

What is happening is that people who have complete control over their animal’s lives are doing what feels good to them, not what is good for the dogs or cats or horses.

To me, this is naked selfishness hiding behind faux animal love.

I don’t believe people who say they will never get a dog again because they can’t bear losing them loved their dogs at all. They love themselves. If you love dogs, you will get them as often and for as long as you can. Lots of beautiful dogs need homes.

For me, loving animals is about protecting them from stress, loneliness, uselessness,  illness, and pain, not promoting those things in the name of love. A dog locked in a small crate for years is not being saved; he is being abused.

I see myself as a steward to my dogs, not a dad.

If there were a genuine animal rights movement in the country, older people, people with low incomes and hard work, lonely people, and those with low fences could adopt some of the millions of dogs and cats languishing in crates and private kennels all over America.

I get wrenching messages daily from poor elderly or busy people who have been denied dog or cat adoptions.  It is heartbreaking when you know that 3 million dogs alone are rotting away in crates in America right now. The number is growing.

As you can tell that I feel strongly about this. And I see it as getting worse every day.

When I went to adopt a homeless barn cat from a rescue group in Saratoga Springs last week, I was told they would never permit one of their stray barn cats to live outdoors anywhere. My application was rejected. I said that barn cats are outdoor animals: they don’t want to sit in laps and living rooms.

The poor barn cat will die in that crate while volunteers come to hug him once a week and feel great about themselves.

I found a genuine animal rights group that seeks good homes for their homeless barn cats and neuters, vaccinates them, and permits them to live their natural lives with people who will feed and care for us. We’re meeting Zip tomorrow.

I see this in the rise of absurdly mindless no-kill shelters where unadoptable or aggressive dogs are confined in crates for years so that selfish people can tell themselves they are great and noble animal lovers.

There is no way we can or should afford to care for dogs with no hope or natural home, and justifiy this cruelty in the name of animal rights.

This is blatant and open animal cruelty and imprisonment, not animal rights.

We have lost all perspective when it comes to animal rights. No honest shelter can afford this, so they ship their dogs and cats out to let someone else euthanize them so they can claim to be a no-kill shelter.

I see this in the people who drove the elephants out of the circuses, disregarding or in denial of what would happen to them after they were gone.

This has resulted in the unnecessary death of hundreds of elephants, many of whom were much loved, well cared for, and fully domesticated.

These people don’t seem to know that domestic animals who work with people live longer and have better lives than animals in the wild in 2023.

Working animals without work end up in Canada or Mexico, getting their throats slit.

I also see this sad phenomenon in the explosion of dog parks where people please themselves, are happy to socialize, and are convinced their dogs are happy and playing.

In the truth is that their dogs are often stressed, miserable, confused, or being chased, pushed around, or attacked by other dogs.

People who feel this way generally know little about what dogs, cats, or other animals are like. They project their needs, fantasies, and assumptions onto helpless animals who are not children or furbabies and cannot speak for themselves.

She also cites research showing how many, if not most, dogs suffer in these parks while their owners gossip and search for partners on the fringes.

This research shows that many dogs are injured in aggressive dog park attacks, where owners are not accountable and insist their dogs are sweet and lovable.

Dogs get sick from other dogs since none are checked before coming to the park. Others are traumatized by being sniffed and challenged by dogs they don’t know, are exhausted by the stress of being in these parks, are often at the mercy of aggressive dogs that shouldn’t be there, and are confused and disoriented by the chaos.

Dogs do not care for chaos and are easily stressed.

Their owners mistake arousal and excitement for fun since children show fun in those ways. And because it is what they want to see.

The park environment is loud and chaotic; it isn’t how dogs naturally live or play. There is no evidence that dogs need this kind of over-stimulation and pack-playing.

They can get what they need elsewhere.

Humans love the social atmosphere of dog parks and the idea of their dogs playing happily with other dogs, even if it is rarely true or that simple. Humans project their own emotions onto their pets.

Like many rescue groups, dog parks are not supervised or regular. Sick dogs, aggressive dogs, unneutered or spayed dogs come and go as they please; their owners are not held accountable for their behavior and are notorious for being in denial or looking the other way.

I took two dogs to dog parks in New Jersey twice and will never do it again. I wouldn’t say I likede anything I saw.

Tiny dogs often suffer from being dominated in small environments, and large dogs can get aroused and learn to be aggressive.

My real issue is this: My dogs have good, healthy, happy lives. They don’t need dog parks. They don’t need play dates. They can get the exercise they need on regular walks, playing in yards, and going to dog-friendly parks with their humans.

Dogs don’t need human-like recreational activities. Taking walks and throwing a ball once a day works fine. They are lean, healthy and happy. They have what they need, not what I need.

They need loving humans who understand that dogs are animals, not surrogate children. They need to be understood as dogs, not kids. They love us, but that doesn’t mean they know what we say or need what we need.

They need what they need, which is rarely what most of us think they need. They don’t need treats either when it comes to it.

The problem with the rampant emotionalizing of dogs is that they are increasingly becoming incompetent therapists and emotional support dolls for people who don’t know what they are like and don’t want to know because it isn’t what they want or need and not one of their fantasies or projections.

Good work, Julie Lovine, and thanks for speaking up for dogs and animals rather than condemning them to meaningless and unnatural lives so that humans can pat themselves on the head and feel good.

I’m afraid you’re too late, but if even a few people read what you wrote and think about it, some dog somewhere will have a better life.