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Anthropomorphize Dogs

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A dog's sense of sight is very different as well as inferior to the sight of our own. Our lack of knowledge about these differences lead us to anthropomorphize dogs. This anthropomorphization can have many negative effects on our canine friends. Anthropomorphism is when you treat animals as if they were our fellow humans, although this is a big problem because animals are completely different than humans mentally and emotionally. Dogs don’t see as many colors and don't see as clear, but they are able to see well in the dark. Dogs see different than we as humans because of their alternate eye construct. This is supposedly due to the fact that “dogs have no fovea (or area with 100% cones), it is estimated their eye for detail is 6 times poorer …show more content…
A dog’s sense of smell is extremely precise, so precise that “it's 10,000 to 100,000 times as acute” (Tyson 2012). This allows them to pick up scents of their prey or even predators. It is said that “If you make the analogy to vision, what you and I can see at a third of a mile, a dog could see more than 3,000 miles away and still see as well” (Tyson 2012). This is so unproportional that humans can even wrap their heads around what having this ability would bring. This really shows how different humans and dogs are in reality. It has also been said that “a dog could detect a teaspoon of sugar in a million gallons of water” (Tyson 2012). One million gallons of water is almost equivalent to two olympic pools worth of water! These amazing abilities are of course due to the shape and build of the dog's nose. The main reason why dogs can smell so well is due to the fact that “ they possess up to 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, compared to about six million in us” (Tyson 2012). Olfactory receptors are expressed in the cell membranes of olfactory receptor neurons and are responsible for the detection of odorants. In other words they are what give us the sense of smell. Another contrast is that “When we inhale, we smell and breathe …show more content…
According to Tom Cushing and his studies on anthropomorphism, “understanding canine behaviour by imposing the assumption that they perceive the world as we do—that their sensory inputs are limited to the capacities of our dull, sight-oriented biology” (Cushing, N/A). In other words, humans can’t see the world through a dog's perspective because they are smell oriented creatures meanwhile we are visual. For the majority of the time people are confused or angered by dogs unusual behaviors meanwhile they are just “responding to clear messages from the environment that we lack the wits to comprehend” (Cushing, N/A). This brings confusion and is unhealthy for a dog when their instinctual behaviors are punished or forced to change. Overall the main reason why we can't understand some of the things dogs due is because “while humans are visual creatures, dogs are olfactory” (Hecht, N/A). This leads back to the main epidemic that our treatment of animals like humans negatively affects them and most definitely isn’t

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