Secret Society

The dog sub-culture that exists in our neighbourhood isunbelievable. Tania and I had no clue when we got Eva and Pearlthat such a secret society existed amongst dog owners. You see - Eva and Pearl are the first two dogs Tania and I owned.Sure, we had a hamster, bird, fish and cats growing up (well, I had abird - Tania had all the rest) but a dog, as it turns out, is different.

Our proof point was moving into a new community. We moved into a nice uptown neighbourhood in Kitchener-Waterloo called Old Westmount just before we got Eva and Pearl. Think 1940’s houses, big trees. Like Rosedale in Toronto - just the Presidents Choiceversion of it. Well -when we got Eva and Pearl we graduated from ‘nice neighbours’to ‘rock stars’. We can’t make it down the street without stopping tovisit 4-5 houses. Eva and Pearl get some treats. Tania and I get a few‘pops’ , as Don Cherry likes to say, and life could not be better. But this got me thinking.

Why does such a sub-culture exist? Well, I’m pleased to report that after posing this question to the wise sageknown as ‘google’ - the answer was presented to me. You probably remember hearing the theory that pets and their owners resemble each other (Belk, 1988). Well - an extension to this theoryproposes that dogs are a personality extension of their owners. This means humans transfer both personal and social attributes to their pets(Jyrinki). However, a key factor in the degree of influence is the dogs purpose in the family. Dogs that perform a work or hunting function inthe family were much less likely to exhibit the characteristics of theowners. However, city and home dogs were much more likely to pickup their owner’s traits and also be viewed as a family member andfriends - not just ‘the dog’.

Is it any wonder then, that when we are walking our little friends down the street and we see neighbours, that there is a social aspect to our travels? We want our puppies to behave well when they meet other community members so all our friends get along. Inother words, we want our family to be adopted into this sub-culture so we can build a connection with our communities.

Needless to say, this research goes into much more detail than Ican put into this short article. However, I have a differentthought about the base research from Belk. IF Tania and I are areflection of our puppies in looks, then we are probably the cutest couple in our neighbourhood ... and perhaps, THAT is abetter explanation of why our family gets stopped so manytimes on a walk!

For more information on Jeff, please visit his website at http://www.jeffnesbitt.ca