We have developed a tendency to take ordinary animal behaviour, give it a human professional label and present it as though we have discovered something extraordinary.
A dog comforts another dog, and suddenly we have a therapy dog. A confident dog reassures a nervous companion, and someone calls it behavioural rehabilitation. Two dogs develop a close relationship, and before long a human is explaining the therapeutic benefits of an interaction that the dogs were perfectly capable of having without us.
I have spent years watching dogs, observing how they communicate, establish boundaries, form friendships and respond to one another. Their relationships can be affectionate, complicated, selective and sometimes difficult. I have seen confident dogs influence more hesitant companions, familiar dogs seek each other out in uncertain situations and individuals develop attachments that are clearly important to them. None of this strikes me as an extraordinary discovery. What interests me is the complexity of their social lives and how much we still have to learn about them.
I came across a video celebrating a gentle giant who had apparently become a therapy dog for sick dogs. The animal looked lovely, and I have no reason to doubt that its company was beneficial. But the description irritated me because it seemed to represent something I have noticed increasingly: our habit of inserting ourselves into natural animal relationships and presenting what follows as a human achievement.
A dog demonstrates patience, companionship or reassurance towards another dog, and suddenly somebody announces that they have a therapy dog. The interaction acquires a professional label, the human becomes part of the story, and the dog’s own social abilities are pushed into the background. What began as a relationship between animals is repackaged as a role that someone has identified, encouraged or supposedly developed.
Somewhere in that process, we take something away from the dog.
Dogs are social animals, although their relationships and preferences vary enormously. Some enjoy the company of other dogs, some are selective, and others find social encounters stressful. Familiarity, temperament and previous experiences all influence how individuals behave together. A dog may be relaxed around one companion and uncomfortable around another. It may become more confident when a familiar animal is present or learn something by observing how another dog responds to a situation. These are aspects of canine social behaviour, not abilities that suddenly appear when humans give them a name.
We should, of course, be cautious about interpreting what we see. A dog lying beside an unwell companion is not necessarily making a conscious decision to provide comfort. Proximity does not automatically establish empathy, and an interaction that looks reassuring to us may have a different meaning for the animals involved. But if we cannot confidently establish a dog’s intentions, we should be equally cautious about describing it as performing a therapeutic role.
There is an important difference between observing that one dog appears to benefit from another’s presence and claiming that the second dog is providing therapy. The first is an observation that can be explored and investigated. The second introduces a human concept, with implications of purpose and specialised ability that may not be justified by the evidence.
The language is revealing. We describe dogs as helpers, mentors, emotional supporters and therapists, borrowing terms associated with human relationships and occupations. Such labels can have legitimate meanings in human directed work, particularly when animals are trained for specific tasks. But applying them to ordinary relationships between dogs can obscure the very behaviour we claim to celebrate. We begin interpreting animals through the functions we assign to them rather than attempting to understand their experiences on their own terms.
And when humans arrange encounters between dogs, we should not confuse creating an opportunity for interaction with creating the abilities that make it possible. Someone may decide which dogs share a space, but the communication, preferences and responses that follow belong to the animals. We can observe those interactions and sometimes influence the circumstances in which they occur. That does not make us the architects of the relationship itself.
This is what I find so frustrating. We seem increasingly reluctant to allow animals to possess abilities that exist independently of human involvement. We admire a dog’s sensitivity, but describe it as a service. We celebrate its intelligence, but place our own interpretation at the centre of the story. We acknowledge its social sophistication while presenting the resulting behaviour as though it needs a human defined purpose to be meaningful.
It is a peculiar form of appreciation that can end up diminishing the animal.
There is also a danger in turning dogs into characters in sentimental stories about what they supposedly do for one another. Once we decide that a particular dog is a natural therapist, we may begin expecting it to tolerate interactions that it would not freely choose. A calm temperament does not mean an animal is comfortable with every companion, and apparent patience should not be mistaken for unlimited willingness. Respecting canine relationships means recognising that dogs have preferences and boundaries, including the right to avoid interactions they find uncomfortable.
For me, this is part of a much wider problem in how we understand animals. We have a tendency to measure their value through human expectations, particularly their usefulness, loyalty or resemblance to ourselves. We are fascinated when they display behaviour that we recognise as compassion, cooperation or emotional support, yet we can be less interested in understanding the behaviour within the animal’s own social world.
Perhaps we are so accustomed to being the central figures in the lives of domestic dogs that we forget they also have relationships with one another that do not revolve around us. Those relationships may influence their welfare, their confidence and their experiences of the world, but they do not exist to provide us with uplifting stories or opportunities to demonstrate our expertise.
Scientific research into canine behaviour has an important role here. Careful observation can help us understand social learning, attachment, stress responses and the influence of companionship without assuming that dogs experience these things exactly as humans do. The purpose should be to improve our understanding, challenge unsupported claims and respect the animals as individuals, not to attach increasingly elaborate titles to familiar behaviour.
When I look at Zeytin and Mabel, I see two dogs with their own personalities, experiences and relationship. I can appreciate their companionship without needing to describe one as the other’s therapist. In fact, I would find that description less interesting than the relationship itself because it would reduce something complex and individual to a simplified human story about one animal performing a function for another.
What I want to understand is how dogs experience their relationships, how they communicate and why particular individuals become important to one another. Those questions are far more interesting than whether we can find another professional sounding title for what they do.
We should be able to witness an animal behaving naturally without feeling compelled to turn the observation into a human achievement. We can admire the influence dogs have on one another without appointing them to roles they never chose, and we can recognise the value of companionship without pretending that we invented it.
The remarkable thing is not that somebody has discovered a dog capable of reassuring another dog. It is that we are still learning to appreciate the richness of animal relationships without placing ourselves at the centre of them.
Dogs were supporting each other long before we called it therapy. We do not have to make dogs more human to appreciate how remarkable they already are.