# Not mean, but, can't understand strangers' love of K-9 dogs... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 10, 2014, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129 "2014-09-10T23:47:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/101 "2014-09-12T22:36:10Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > A jerk, sure, but “troll” honestly hadn’t occurred to me. I see the beginning of a beautiful friendship! ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/102 "2014-09-12T22:37:34Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Half of the people on this board can’t do that. That shows that half of the people on this board haven’t had their tummies patted. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/103 "2014-09-12T22:38:30Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > I see the beginning of a beautiful friendship! Maybe, but if you were hoping to hump my leg and get some Beggin’ Strips ahead of the dog, no dice. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/104 "2014-09-13T01:45:31Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > As one who routinely has 300 pounds of dog sleep draped across him, I begin to understand how the faithful feel when I say I don’t believe in their god. > [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > ^ Please say that’s not ONE dog! Maybe it’s his girlfriend? ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/105 "2014-09-13T03:21:00Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Maybe, but if you were hoping to hump my leg and get some Beggin’ Strips ahead of the dog, no dice. Hmmm…gimmee a minute, and I’ll get back w/you. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/106 "2014-09-13T04:36:27Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Half of the people on this board can’t do that. But they can at least imagine the idea. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/107 "2014-09-13T05:05:17Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > But they can at least imagine the idea. Yeah, if you say so. I haven’t seen the evidence of it. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/108 "2014-09-13T06:58:30Z")
> [@saje](#): > > This is so off base that I’m not really sure if I should bother answering. > > But I’m bored so I will. > > A dog doesn’t know or care about guilt or innocence, he knows only that he has a job to do to please his human friend. Whether the human involved is directing his dog at a murdering thief or a little old lady has nothing to do with the dog or his value as a brave working partner. > > A well trained police dog will go after someone to bite and hold when he is given the specific cue or command. He will do that to the best of his ability despite the injuries he might be getting, and only because he knows that’s his job and he wants to please his partner. The off switch is another command or cue from his partner. That was exactly my point. I would not mourn the death of a human who was willing to brutalise anyone he was pointed at because he was “just following orders”, and I would not go to the funeral of a beast trained to do the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/109 "2014-09-13T10:54:52Z")
There’s just a little bit of a difference between a human “following orders” and a dog doing what he has been trained to do. I generally prefer the company of animals over that of humans, but I do recognize that dogs are not people and cannot always be compared on an equal basis. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/110 "2014-09-13T10:56:09Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Your question was, of course, right on the mark. A fucking animal is a fucking animal. The dog was no more informed than the pigeon was. Just because a dog comes up and smiles and licks one’s face, and goes where it is told, doesn’t make it brave, loving, smart, etc…It means it wants to hump your leg and get some Beggin Strips. Yeah, trolling… ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/111 "2014-09-13T11:52:36Z")
I’m not insulted. If loving my dog makes me a goober, then come down to the fillin’ station and say “hey” to Cousin Gomer. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/112 "2014-09-13T14:14:00Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > I’m not insulted. If loving my dog makes me a goober, then come down to the fillin’ station and say “hey” to Cousin Gomer. 😃 Isn’t Gomer also your uncle, son, brother and nephew? ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/113 "2014-09-13T16:46:08Z")
Hey even Hitler loved his dogs who were willing to kill for him. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/114 "2014-09-13T21:39:26Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I condemn the showing of empathy towards dogs. > > Not to be mean, but because it is well known that such behavior diminishes the supply of empathy available for humans. > > It’s a scientific principle. > [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Yeah. Empathy is an element on the periodic table, and there is a finite amount of it available. Be careful how you use it. I get the irony, but I worry a little about this. Fact is, the US spends far more on its pets than it does on third world aid. (AFAIK: we can dig if somebody wants to.) Now that doesn’t really prove anything in and of itself, but the idea that more empathy towards dogs encourages more empathy for the most vulnerable humans of our planet is an hypothesis in need of evidence. Q: Do dog owners give more to charity for the poor? Less? Beats me. > [@Merneith](#): > > Dogs and humans have spent the last twenty thousand years evolving in a symbiotic relationship. We got a partner who guards our families and provides us food. They get - what? Food? They don’t need us for that. They can feed themselves. Shelter? They don’t need it. They have outdoor coats. Even their feet don’t freeze in the winter. Water? Their sense of smell will lead them too it. > > Family. Friendship. Social life. That’s what they get from us. We’re their family. That’s how dogs think of us, with their so-called inferior brains. We’re their pack. We’re their home. We are _everything_ to them. And mostly, they get shit on, for it. Well… I say it truly is symbiotic. Do the math. There are 400 million dogs in the world. The Grey Wolf population [is 2 or 3 magnitudes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gray_wolf_populations_by_country) below that. I doubt whether there is any non-human mammal carnivore with a higher population, but would be happy to be corrected on this point. I recognize that you are making a point about dog psychology though. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/115 "2014-09-13T22:31:22Z")
There has been the suggestion that dogs first approached us (as wolves, originally) and lived much like feral dogs do now before being adopted by humans. I don’t know how plausible this hypothesis is, but if true, dogs needed us more than we needed them in the past, and certainly now. I wonder what the correlation between the presence of dogs and human success has been throughout our history. Perhaps someone here knows something about it? It would be especially interesting to know if there were groups of humans for whom the loss of dogs would have been catastrophic. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/116 "2014-09-13T23:29:47Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > I wonder what the correlation between the presence of dogs and human success has been throughout our history. Perhaps someone here knows something about it? It would be especially interesting to know if there were groups of humans for whom the loss of dogs would have been catastrophic. That seems like a hard thing to study, since dogs were far more central to human hunting than the more recent human agriculture. Meaning, we’re discussing small roaming human societies, not larger settled ones. Also I wonder about measurement: while some stone age societies buried their dogs, I don’t know whether this practice is believed to be universal. I’m guessing not. I did find an interesting hypothesis online. I’m not aware of the quality of the evidence though. [INDENT]Dogs are generally ubiquitous in archaeological contexts, and they are the first domesticates,who came under the selective hand of humans thousands of years before any hoofed animals. … Several interesting perspectives on the co-evolutionary relationship of humans and dogs havesurfaced, particularly the notion that _canids domesticated humans_. This is based on the idea that the domestication process began before humans truly occupied habitations in the form of a’domus’, while canids had already been living in dens. It is even argued that wolves were the first mammalian pastoralists, keeping pace with migrating herds of ungulates (Schleidt and Shalter 2003). Schleiedt (1998) asks if humans learned what we would consider “classic human behavior” from packs of wolves, including true friendship, idealism, and kindness. This wide range of perspectives on human-canid interactions speaks to how much we have yet to learn about this relationship. [/INDENT] [(PDF) Preliminary analysis of dog remains in proximity with human burials at DgRv-006, Dionisio Point locality | Matthew Marino, M.A., RPA - Academia.edu](http://www.academia.edu/3116161/Preliminary_analysis_of_dog_remains_in_proximity_with_human_burials_at_DgRv-006_Dionisio_Point_locality) Recall claims that humans were neurologically very different when they commenced the homo-canine partnership. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2014, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/117 "2014-09-14T04:34:28Z")
> [@saje](#): > > Yeah, trolling… You’re the one who’s trolling now…knock off the shit. It’s been addressed. Act as an adult would act. Be a dildo all you want, just don’t start lying about something that has been covered. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2014, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/118 "2014-09-14T04:35:45Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > If loving my dog makes me a goober This has nothing to do with MY OP, just in case that’s what you’re referencing. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2014, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/119 "2014-09-15T00:01:14Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > You’re the one who’s trolling now…knock off the shit. It’s been addressed. Act as an adult would act. Be a dildo all you want, just don’t start lying about something that has been covered. Hunh??? Lying? No. Opinion. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129/120 "2014-09-17T14:19:31Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > No, your reaction is stupid. By that, I mean that no intelligent thought was required. It was too much effort to think about it, so you took the easy way out and let your emotions do the work. > > If you think the question is stupid, demonstrate that instead of attempting to disguise your inability to address it with implications of superiority. It’s a perfectly reasonable question. I’d even call it a good question, if I do say so myself, and the fact that you can’t answer it without insults is your own failing, not mine. > > Again, if dogs in similar situations are brave, does the same apply to carrier pigeons? > > Note that the question would make no sense if I were unaware that carrier pigeons are not dogs, but thanks for the zoology lesson. I know it took me ages to get back to this, but I will give you the explanation you so less than richly deserve. Your question is stupid the same way Creationism is stupid. Intelligence didn’t just appear out of nowhere. It evolved. A brain isn’t a uniquely human trait. A human is going to use the brain that evolved for it to be a hairless ape, a dog is going to use the brain it evolved to be a dog, and a carrier pigeon is going to use the brain it evolved to be a carrier pigeon. To think that think that dogs and carrier pigeons think the same way is just fucking stupid. Likewise, unless you’re a creationist, the idea that mankind is unique among the animals by the lack of instinct is also stupid. If you think that evolution robbed humans of “instinct” or that it robbed all other species of “higher thought”, you’re stupid. The reason why I dismissed your question out of hand, is that that it is only not stupid to someone who, like a Creationist, knows nothing about evolution. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-mean-but-cant-understand-strangers-love-of-k-9-dogs/698129.md?page=7)