The Thammasat University Library has acquired a new book that should be useful for students interested in biology, religious ethics, philosophy, and related subjects.

Who’s a Good Dog? And How to Be a Better Human is by Dr. Jessica Pierce, an American bioethicist and philosopher, and writer affiliated with the Center for Bioethics and Humanities, University of Colorado Denver.

The TU Library collection includes other books about dogs.

Who’s a Good Dog? examines ethical issues that arise in the caring relationships of humans with dogs.

Dr. Pierce encourages readers to allow dogs to be themselves and behave accordingly, as much as possible while still being safe and healthy.

She notes that many dogs are constantly anxious because they do not have access to food at all times.

However, if pet owners do make food available constantly for dogs, they will overeat and become unhealthy.

So it is better to find a balance between keeping dogs happy and healthy.

Similarly, if dogs like sitting around and resting most of the time, Dr. Pierce does not recommend that they should be forced to exercise.

Instead, she suggests that owners should respect the preferences of individual dogs, even if it is sometimes necessary to persuade canines to be active for their own health.

Part of the problem may be that modern training of animals does not allow dogs to be themselves.

Their natural behaviors of roaming, barking, digging, and jumping are discouraged by trainers who tell them “No” all the time without offering alternatives.

If a dog chews on slippers or computer cables and climba inside a dishwasher, the word “no” may just seem like background noise to be ignored.

The author suggests that animal owners should be resigned to this behavior, just as pets have to put up with annoying human behavior that distresses them, like playing loud music, using noisy vacuum cleaners, and using strongly scented cleaning products.

Dr. Pierce advises allowing dogs to choose paths for walks and to accept that they need to forage, or search widely for food, even if they are well fed at home.

In an essay posted online, Dr. Pierce noted that dogs have been affected by breeding standards to please human owners:

Cuteness in offspring serves a key evolutionary function of eliciting a caregiving response from adults. Ethologists have described a ‘baby schema’ – a collection of infantile features such as a round face, big eyes, a little nose, soft skin or fur, unique smells (puppy breath!), and crying sounds – that release innate caregiving behaviours.

The baby schema triggers a flood of hormones in the adult brain and, more importantly, captures attention and propels into top priority those movements that respond to the baby. Human babies share with other animal babies the same cute features, which is why we find baby animals irresistible. As the neuroscientist Morten Kringelbach and his colleagues write in a review of the phenomenon, cuteness is ‘one of the most basic and powerful forces shaping our behaviour’.

Cuteness is also one of the most basic and powerful forces shaping human relations with dogs. But unfortunately, it isn’t all sweetness and light – the enduring cuteness of certain dogs throughout life has become a status symbol unto itself. […]

The most blatant dog fetish today is the yen for cuteness. Almost any foray on to Instagram, YouTube or TikTok will bring you into contact with adorable pictures of dogs and cats and other animals that will make you smile and say: Aww, how cute! You have just witnessed commodity fetishisation through a cultural phenomenon that the media scholar James Meese calls the ‘cute economy’.

The cute economy exists primarily on social media, is user-generated, and is heavily dominated by pictures of animals, especially pets. Within the cute economy, the goal is simple: to generate an ‘aww’ response, presumably followed by a tap on the screen to ‘like’ and ‘share’. We can click through image after image of cute animals doing cute things, feeling a little boost of positivity and good cheer.

The marketing researchers Ghalia Shamayleh and Zeynep Arsel from Concordia University in Canada have identified some of the most common categories of cuteness in online pet content: animals doing goofy or silly things; animals of extreme size (especially very small, or ‘smol’); animals with unusual looks; and animals behaving in ways that seem human-like.

Dogs and other animals in the cute economy are often further humanised by being dressed in clothing and accessorised with hats, jewellery, nail polish and fur dyed a rainbow of colours. Users who post successfully and with some strategy can monetise their dog’s cuteness. Certain dogs have become cuteness celebrities, with millions of devoted followers and paid content from advertisers. Overall, the cute economy is worth billions of dollars.

It is hard to argue with cuteness, and impossible to deny the unbearable cuteness of dogs. Yet, while the cute economy may make us feel good momentarily, and may generate a lot of money, it might also be driving unhealthy dog-acquisition patterns and, more generally, fostering attitudes towards dogs that aren’t necessarily in their best interest. Maybe dogs have become too cute.

Do people want dogs only for their looks? What are the motivations, values and behaviours of those who decide to go out and buy a dog today? These questions are part of a small but growing area of study. Although the research is still preliminary, available data suggest that physical appearance is the single most important factor driving dog-acquisition practices in the United States and throughout much of the West. And the look that we’re going for right now is ‘cute’.

Unfortunately, the cutest and most popular breeds tend also to be those with the most significant risk of health and behavioural problems. Cuteness is often coupled with canine discomfort. The second most fashionable breed of dog in the US last year was the French bulldog, affectionately known as the Frenchie, distinctive for its large head, extremely short muzzle, big round eyes, and humungous bat ears.

Alongside the Frenchie, other brachycephalic (‘short-headed’) breeds remain among the most desired, most frequently purchased, and most likely to appear on Instagram and other social media platforms. In biological terms, brachycephaly refers to a skull that is considerably shorter than is typical for a given species. In dog-breeder lingo, foreshortened muzzles and flat faces are called conformational traits. ‘Conformation’, in the context of dog breeding, refers to how a dog’s physical appearance matches or conforms to standards set by breeding clubs. It indicates nothing about how well or poorly a dog with these physical traits will function in the world.

People consume dog breeds with extremely foreshortened skulls breeds in ever-increasing numbers, despite the accumulation of evidence, much of it widely available to the public, that these dogs suffer from more than their fair share of physical and behavioural challenges, and experience a significantly diminished quality of life relative to their canine peers. […]

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)