The Littlest Warzone

This video is supposed to be funny because the little dog thinks he’s protecting the girl from an attacker. What a brave doggy, he’s so tiny, etc etc. 

[Trigger warning for dogs: Loud barking!]

Is the dog heroically protecting the kid from a perceived assault, like a miniature Marine? Maybe. Does that make everything okay? Not even a bit. 

The kid isn't going to care whether the dog has delusions of heroism when he's in urgent care. His parents' lawyers aren't going to care when they sue your ass, either.

Think about it from the dog's point of view. Supposing his motivation really is to protect the girl (rather than the more likely, “I don’t like this unpredictable child, I need to make him stop doing scary stuff”), is that really a world we want the dog to live in? Where there are constant dangers to himself and his loved ones, and he has to risk his neck to protect them? That sounds like a conscript living in a war zone. Not cool. 

Sooner or later, barking and charging isn't going to work. What if he gets yelled at or hit, instead of laughed at? What if the scary thing doesn’t go away like usual? If at first you don't succeed, try harder, right? Since there's no air support to call on, I guess our little soldier will just have to get a bigger gun. That just means escalating aggression, which means more stress for the dog and "suddenly" the owners are left with a "nasty little ankle biter". Whose fault is that?

Original video source: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=230998907273046&id=130245990681672&_rdr

Reading Into Things

The Dodo, surely our favorite source of questionable material, picked up on this video from the Humane Society of Missouri recently, about a creative new program that's supposedly benefiting kids and dogs alike: 

It’s really great to see shelters trying to make themselves into welcoming, educational places for kids–let me get that straight first of all. However,  this video isn’t showing many dogs that look like they’re getting much out of the experience. I'll go through chronologically:

Two of the dogs in the second shot are clearly barking at the window; very definitely no relaxation for those guys. 

The tan and white bully type, in the front between 0:21 and 0:29 almost seems like it’s adorably trying to follow along with the words, but look how still he is.  The dog is staring, with a half-bowed head and tense front legs—all in all, probably not a picture of relaxation. 

The black and white one is exhibiting classic signs of stress - we can see panting, pacing around the room, looking around, and yawning. Again, the behavior suggests a dog who is not having a chill time of things.

And the last dog, with the cone—fast asleep, so who knows? Dogs sleep when they’re recovering, when they’re relaxed, and also when they’re highly stressed. It’s impossible to tell which of those is happening, so again, this isn’t showing us much.

Getting kids involved in learning about dogs is a great thing, but placing them outside their habitats and having them make incomprehensible noises without interacting with the dogs seems like it’s more likely to be a stressful experience than a calming one.