Boise State University issued the following announcement on June 2.
Woof, bark, wag: how to help pets transition as owners return to work after COVID-19
When faced with fear, loneliness and uncertainty, it is alway best to have a friend at one’s side. It’s no wonder, then, that as the global COVID-19 pandemic swept across the nation, Americans immediately began seeking out humanity’s oldest friends. Shelters were suddenly emptied of four-legged occupants, and waiting lists to foster animals filled equally quickly.
To Shelly Volsche, a Boise State lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, this came as no surprise. As both a born dog-lover and former dog trainer, Volsche is an avid researcher of the relationship humans share with dogs.
“The joke is that I was raised with the dogs, because my mom brought a German Shepherd home about two months before I came home from the hospital. Mac and I were inseparable,” said Volsche.
Volsche and Lucy
For at least 15,000 years, dogs have played important roles in human history. Volsche explained that humans have been domesticating and co-evolving with dogs longer than nearly any other species. As hunter-gatherers, humans were already developing symbiotic relationships with wolves and early dogs before domesticating agricultural animals.
“Early wolves would have benefited by hunting with us because they would get our leftovers, and we benefited by following and cooperating with them, because it helped us hunt,” said Volsche.
The relationship grew stronger and the role of the dog shifted over time. Dogs became fellow hunters, guardians and sentinels for different cultures. However, Volsche said it was not until around the Victorian era (1837-1901) that humans began breeding dogs to prioritize form over function.
“The really interesting stuff picks up around the Industrial Revolution. You have the Victorians really breeding for form; we start to see poodles and specific lines of particular types of gun dogs and spaniels,” said Volsche.
As the timeline entered the modern era, enormous shifts in educational and occupational opportunities, and even women’s reproductive autonomy, played a role in how pet dogs were moved closer and closer into the home. In some cases, dogs even moved into the baby crib.
“One of the phenomena I study is people who make a choice not to have children for one reason or another, and their pets – particularly dogs – start to become children. It’s not to say they think they are raising furry people, but the dogs fulfill a similar need to nurture,” she said.
Not only do dogs sometimes become surrogate children, humans have a tendency to both under- and overestimate their dog’s intellect and psyche.
Original source can be found here.