Anthropomorphism
- wabniaq
- Aug 29, 2024
- 2 min read
From the ancient Chinese classic Chuang-tzu:
And have you not heard this?‐‐ Formerly a sea‐bird alighted in the suburban country of Lû. The marquis went out to meet it, (brought it) to the ancestral temple, and prepared to banquet it there. The Kiû‐shâo was performed to afford it music; an ox, a sheep, and a pig were killed to supply the food.
The bird, however, looked at everything with dim eyes, and was very sad. It did not venture to eat a single bit of flesh, nor to drink a single cupful; and in three days it died.
'The marquis was trying to nourish the bird with what he used for himself, and not with the nourishment proper for a bird. They who would nourish birds as they ought to be nourished should let them perch in the deep forests, or roam over sandy plains; float on the rivers and lakes; feed on the eels and small fish; wing their flight in regular order and then stop; and be free and at ease in their resting‐places. It was a distress to that bird to hear men speak; what did it care for all the noise and hubbub made about it? If the music of the Kiû‐shâo or the Hsien‐khih were performed in the wild of the Thung‐thing lake, birds would fly away, and beasts would run off when they heard it, and fishes would dive down to the bottom of the water; while men, when they hear it, would come all round together, and look on.
Fishes live and men die in the water. They are different in constitution, and therefore differ in their likes and dislikes. Hence it was that the ancient sages did not require (from all) the same ability, nor demand the same performances.
It's easy to think that because we as humans like or don't like something, our dog must feel the same way. This is not always the case, and sometimes applying human categories of understanding or experience to dogs can have undesirable consequences for everyone involved. One of the benefits of relationship-based trainnig is we learn how to advocate for our dogs in ways that make sense to the dog.
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