No I’m not a fascist (at least I hope not…)
I’m trying to understand why we’ve normalised the idea of eugenics in dogs (e.g. golden retrievers are friendly and smart, chihuahas are aggressive, etc.)¹ but find the idea of racial classification in humans abhorrent.
I can sort of see it from the idea that Nurture (culture and upbringing) would have a greater effect on a human’s characteristics than Nature would.
At the same time, my family tree has many twins and I’ve noticed that the identical ones have similar outcomes in life, whereas the fraternal ones (even the ones that look very similar) don’t really (N=3).
Maybe dog culture is not a thing, and that’s why people are happy to make these sweeping generalizations on dog characterics?
I’m lost a little
1: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/df/74/f7/df74f716c3a70f59aeb468152e4be927.png
I mean, we do all of that for children, too and nobody questions if a parent who won’t let their kid play in the street loves them.
Being kind to something else NEVER has to include doing only what they want. That’s how you end up a people-pleaser with shitty “friends” that abuse you.
I am not suggesting that people don’t love their pets. I love my cat to bits and pieces, but I don’t know if pet ownership as a concept is beneficial for the pets, if that makes more sense.
We do some of that for children, but I intentionally tried to choose examples I thought would apply less (locking my cat alone in my house for hours and sterilizing her being big ones I hope people don’t do to children), because we don’t treat animals exactly the way we do children. There are a lot of ways in which we’re really archaic about human rights, but we do generally look out for people’s psychological health in that regard. During covid, when people were cooped up in their houses, there were hundreds of articles about the effect of isolation on children’s (and adults’) mental health, but pet owners regularly leave pets alone (sometimes even in a crate, because otherwise they act out!) without worrying about their mental health.
A case could be made for prisoners and/or people with severe handicaps being treated the same way, but at the very least, we consider sterilizing them a crime. Again, I sterilized my cat, because I do think it’s the best for the greater good, but I don’t know if it’s best for her. I also don’t think it’s really possible to know, given the communication difficulties, so all we as pet owners can do is try our best and hope.