Is the human-animal bond addictive? The first time that question popped into my mind years ago, I immediately wanted to dismiss it with a definitive, “No!” Like so many animal lovers, I wanted to believe that nothing but good could come from our positive feelings about animals and theirs about us. However as the years filled with interactions with both pets and their owners mount up, I’ve had to accept the possibility that the bond does have its dark side and that such an addiction could be one of them. Even more disconcerting, I’ve had to accept that while companion animals may become addicted to their owners, this often occurs because the humans in their lives became addicted to them first.
In a way, that we could become addicted to our relationships with companion animals isn’t all that surprising. After all, dogs and humans have shared an intimate relationship for at least 10,000 years and that we share with cats goes back about half that far. Because we know that behavior and physiology evolve as a unit, it doesn’t seem unlikely that the positive physiological changes associated with the pleasurable aspects of human-animal relationships are as deeply embedded as our innate fears of certain potential animal predators. Early humans/humanoids who possessed the potential to discriminate animal friends from foes and then make the most of the friends would be more likely to survive than those who didn’t. For example, those early humans who could form a bond with a semi-wild canine might gain the comfort, warmth, and security to survive in a hostile environment that claimed others. On the other hand, those foolish enough to try to form such a bond with an animal who had no such desire for human companionship would become food rather than friend and vanish from the gene pool. Over time, the desire to intimately interact with certain members of the animal kingdom and the positive physiological changes associated with these interactions would become part of our human heritage.
Back in ancient times, those human-animal relationships that survived mostly likely were those in which both human and animal needs were fulfilled. Members of both species involved in such interactions had enough else to do to survive that they couldn’t afford to focus all their attention on each other. The idea of spending time and energy feeding a dog when one barely had enough to feed one’s human self and family was surely unthinkable, and those early animal companions almost certainly had to fend for themselves. In fact, some of those animals fulfilled their needs so well that their ability to locate and/or dispatch certain prey endeared them to people even more. Some dogs evolved into prized hunting companions whose more highly developed senses enabled humans to locate more game more efficiently. When cats entered the scene, they so easily dispatched rats and other rodents which were destroying human foodstuffs and otherwise plaguing people that it’s no wonder they enchanted Homo sapiens. Thus even though some views of the human-animal bond maintain that it evolved because “inferior” animals needed us, I don’t think we can discount the possibility that the exact opposite is true: The bond developed because we humans needed them.
But what about today when we provide our pets with food, shelter, and often try to control virtually every aspect of their lives? Surely the fact that they’re so dependent on us must mean that they’re at least as addicted to our company as we are to theirs.
I can’t tell you how much I really, really want to believe this. But the more I think about it, the more difficult it is for me to do so. It seems to me that the reason our companion animals are so utterly dependent on us is because, to a large extent, we’ve made them that way, and not because they’ve chosen to do this. By almost totally replacing natural selection with human selection, we’re creating a domestic canine and, to a lesser degree thanks to their not-quite-domesticated status, a domestic feline gene pool that reflects human rather than animal needs. Rather than being dogs or cats, they’ve become and continue to become human creations of what we think an “ideal” dog or cat should be.
I relish the feeling I get when I stroke my dogs or cat, and naturally want to repeat it. Because I see their behaviors as a reflection of their relationship with me, the urge to immediately respond to anything they do is difficult to ignore. It sounds so perfectly natural and utterly reasonable. However, what if my desire to so react to them on my terms undermines their behavior? What if my neediness for them and the subordinate position it communicates forces my dogs into a leadership position in our human-canine pack that they lack the confidence and/or experience to handle? Or, conversely, what if Whittington the cat resists my desire to fulfill my need to cuddle him because it violates his natural, more solitary feline nature, and this frustrates or offends me and thus undermines our relationship?
My logical mind immediately tells me to put my own needs on hold if necessary to respect those of my pets, to initiate interactions rather than always reacting to my dogs, to accept that Whit isn’t a cuddly cat and that this is perfectly all right. I know this is the right thing to do and routinely recommend my clients whose animals are experiencing problems do likewise. But I also know how difficult it can be. I know the ache and all the other negative effects created when I can’t react the way I want to my pets. Although I’ve never been addicted to anything, I can’t imagine that withdrawal from the worst drug can be any more difficult than that.
Even though intellectually I know that there are times when ignoring these displays is the only way we can change other, far more serious animal behaviors and the medical problems this kind of needy reactive human relationship may precipitate, it’s so difficult not to equate this mutual neediness/reactivity with love. And unfortunately for my pets, like so many other humans, sometimes my need to feel loved is more important to me than my need to relate to and love the animals in my life in a way that makes sense to them.
Luckily for me, though, I don’t need any 12-step program to cure my addition. Two steps will do it. The first is a determination to always relate to them in a way that recognizes and respects their unique individual and species needs as well as my own. The second is control my own neediness if it creates problems for them. I’m not always perfect at this. But at least I’m trying.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.
Is the human-animal bond addictive? The first time that question popped into my mind years ago, I immediately wanted to dismiss it with a definitive, “No!” Like so many animal lovers, I wanted to believe that nothing but good could come from our positive feelings about animals and theirs about us. However as the years filled with interactions with both pets and their owners mount up, I’ve had to accept the possibility that the bond does have its dark side and that such an addiction could be one of them. Even more disconcerting, I’ve had to accept that while companion animals may become addicted to their owners, this often occurs because the humans in their lives became addicted to them first.
In a way, that we could become addicted to our relationships with companion animals isn’t all that surprising. After all, dogs and humans have shared an intimate relationship for at least 10,000 years and that we share with cats goes back about half that far. Because we know that behavior and physiology evolve as a unit, it doesn’t seem unlikely that the positive physiological changes associated with the pleasurable aspects of human-animal relationships are as deeply embedded as our innate fears of certain potential animal predators. Early humans/humanoids who possessed the potential to discriminate animal friends from foes and then make the most of the friends would be more likely to survive than those who didn’t. For example, those early humans who could form a bond with a semi-wild canine might gain the comfort, warmth, and security to survive in a hostile environment that claimed others. On the other hand, those foolish enough to try to form such a bond with an animal who had no such desire for human companionship would become food rather than friend and vanish from the gene pool. Over time, the desire to intimately interact with certain members of the animal kingdom and the positive physiological changes associated with these interactions would become part of our human heritage.
Back in ancient times, those human-animal relationships that survived mostly likely were those in which both human and animal needs were fulfilled. Members of both species involved in such interactions had enough else to do to survive that they couldn’t afford to focus all their attention on each other. The idea of spending time and energy feeding a dog when one barely had enough to feed one’s human self and family was surely unthinkable, and those early animal companions almost certainly had to fend for themselves. In fact, some of those animals fulfilled their needs so well that their ability to locate and/or dispatch certain prey endeared them to people even more. Some dogs evolved into prized hunting companions whose more highly developed senses enabled humans to locate more game more efficiently. When cats entered the scene, they so easily dispatched rats and other rodents which were destroying human foodstuffs and otherwise plaguing people that it’s no wonder they enchanted Homo sapiens. Thus even though some views of the human-animal bond maintain that it evolved because “inferior” animals needed us, I don’t think we can discount the possibility that the exact opposite is true: The bond developed because we humans needed them.
But what about today when we provide our pets with food, shelter, and often try to control virtually every aspect of their lives? Surely the fact that they’re so dependent on us must mean that they’re at least as addicted to our company as we are to theirs.
I can’t tell you how much I really, really want to believe this. But the more I think about it, the more difficult it is for me to do so. It seems to me that the reason our companion animals are so utterly dependent on us is because, to a large extent, we’ve made them that way, and not because they’ve chosen to do this. By almost totally replacing natural selection with human selection, we’re creating a domestic canine and, to a lesser degree thanks to their not-quite-domesticated status, a domestic feline gene pool that reflects human rather than animal needs. Rather than being dogs or cats, they’ve become and continue to become human creations of what we think an “ideal” dog or cat should be.
I relish the feeling I get when I stroke my dogs or cat, and naturally want to repeat it. Because I see their behaviors as a reflection of their relationship with me, the urge to immediately respond to anything they do is difficult to ignore. It sounds so perfectly natural and utterly reasonable. However, what if my desire to so react to them on my terms undermines their behavior? What if my neediness for them and the subordinate position it communicates forces my dogs into a leadership position in our human-canine pack that they lack the confidence and/or experience to handle? Or, conversely, what if Whittington the cat resists my desire to fulfill my need to cuddle him because it violates his natural, more solitary feline nature, and this frustrates or offends me and thus undermines our relationship?
My logical mind immediately tells me to put my own needs on hold if necessary to respect those of my pets, to initiate interactions rather than always reacting to my dogs, to accept that Whit isn’t a cuddly cat and that this is perfectly all right. I know this is the right thing to do and routinely recommend my clients whose animals are experiencing problems do likewise. But I also know how difficult it can be. I know the ache and all the other negative effects created when I can’t react the way I want to my pets. Although I’ve never been addicted to anything, I can’t imagine that withdrawal from the worst drug can be any more difficult than that.
Even though intellectually I know that there are times when ignoring these displays is the only way we can change other, far more serious animal behaviors and the medical problems this kind of needy reactive human relationship may precipitate, it’s so difficult not to equate this mutual neediness/reactivity with love. And unfortunately for my pets, like so many other humans, sometimes my need to feel loved is more important to me than my need to relate to and love the animals in my life in a way that makes sense to them.
Luckily for me, though, I don’t need any 12-step program to cure my addition. Two steps will do it. The first is a determination to always relate to them in a way that recognizes and respects their unique individual and species needs as well as my own. The second is control my own neediness if it creates problems for them. I’m not always perfect at this. But at least I’m trying.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.