Fig. 1.2. Gromit at Bristol Zoo, UK (2013).
Just as the dog is a cultural construct in the eyes of humans, so is the dog owner or human companion. Society depicts acceptable images of dog owners and human companions, helping in the process to mould the behaviour of these people and how they wish to be perceived by society. At the same time, the behaviour of these people influences media representations of the ‘good’ dog owner. These images are depicted both in factual and fictional media: the latter including everything from Wallace (the ‘owner’ of Gromit) to Wal Footrot (the owner of Dog) and George (the Famous Five owner of Timmy).
Culturally and Temporally Specific Nature of Dogs and Human–Dog Relations
Given that the nature of the dog (as viewed by humans) and the dog owner is a cultural construct of humans and that culture is both temporally and spatially specific (Massey and Jess, 1995; Gullotta et al., 2000), it is not surprising that how dogs are viewed and the relations between them and humans are specific to time and place. In this way definitions of the ‘good’ dog and the ‘good’ dog owner are also specific to place and time. While there is plenty of observable evidence to support these claims, and many of this will be highlighted throughout this book, it is worth noting that to date: ‘Cross-cultural comparisons of dog behaviour and dog-keeping practices are limited’ (Wan et al., 2009: 206).
The place and time specific cultural definitions of dogs and their relations with humans colour the rules and regulations relating to the governing of dogs’ behaviour and where they are allowed to go. Consequently, as we will see in this book, laws, rules and regulations governing dogs alter temporally and spatially. This reality also applies to the unwritten social rules about dogs and their owners. Everything from the exercising of dogs, sports associated with dogs and whether dogs are allowed inside the family home and on the furniture, to the eating of dog meat and the provision of cuisine and holidays for dogs are influenced by and specific to culture. When talking about temporal specificity it is important to remember that this refers not only to linear time but also to differences between human generations.
The result, as will be seen throughout the book, is that the experiences and position of dogs in leisure are constantly changing and contested, with conflicts often occurring between different groups. The nature of these conflicts and the philosophical issues they often throw up will be discussed throughout the book with an attempt to provide potential roadmaps that may contribute to conflict resolution. Such paths often entail compromise, as will be seen, but they need to recognize the sentience of dogs so they become actors in the process rather than merely objects that can be positioned at the whim of humanity.
Author’s Own Standpoint
Writing anything for public consumption always requires authors to place their ideas and beliefs on display because only by doing this can the written word be contextualized and believed or fairly rejected. As such, this public display is both unnerving and empowering (for both the reader and the author). Often, such displays are either hidden in between the written words or behind a public mask that is all too often constructed around the beliefs of others, commonly famous philosophers from history (Foucault being very popular in certain fields, for example).
This entire book and everything dog related within it is a consequence of the fact that I am a dog owner so it seems appropriate to begin explaining my standpoint by giving a brief background about how I have reached this point in my life and the implications of it. My first dog, Snuffie, entered my life as an 8-week-old Border Collie mongrel in February 2001, from the Queensland RSPCA in Brisbane. She was ostensibly to be a dog for my 2-year-old son, with the two of them able to grow up together. By this point in my life I was 29 years old and had never had anything other than a goldfish as a pet. As a child, dogs had never really entered my life and my only brief encounters with them had been rather scary. I was not, it is fair to say, a dog person, a dog lover, in any respect. This was all to change and I could and perhaps should write an entire book about the journey but this is not that book so I will skip over all but the barest bones. Simply put, in the 9 years prior to her untimely death (I sat with her after much soul searching while our family friend and vet administered a lethal injection to put her to sleep and out of the misery that was a slow-spreading but inoperable cancer in her spinal column), Snuffie became my dog first and foremost and a family pet a distant second. Barely a day went by in all that time when we did not spend time walking together (as all Border Collie owners will doubtless attest, such dogs and owners can easily walk forever, or so it seems) or engaging in the simple play of throw and fetch. The result: I am now a confirmed dog lover and in particular a lover of mongrels. It seems I am forever destined to have black and white mutts in my household who have a passing relation to the purebred Border Collie, and Gypsy is my current canine companion.
Rudy (2011: 36), when talking of his own relationship with his dogs, stated: ‘As my dogs and I work hard to learn a common language and share a life together, we are all becoming something new, something part human, part dog, a part of one another.’ I have talked previously of the notion of the ‘dumanog’, a human–dog hybrid that fits well with Rudy’s description (Carr, 2006). Similarly, using Goffman’s concept, Sanders (1999) saw the dog and owner as a ‘with’; where they are perceived to be a group whose members are together. This togetherness is demonstrated and reinforced not just by the leash that links them in public but the looks and physical contact they each give one another in a show of ongoing reassurance.
While I remain wedded to the existence of the dumanog in the moment it is important not to oversimplify a more complex reality. While my dog and I can at specific moments be a dumanog, at others we are separate, clearly a human and a dog. This description of the relationship a human can have with a dog is reflected in the views of Wedde (2007: 284) who stated that: ‘I know that the dog and I are utterly different in ways that neither of us will understand; and yet we inflect each other’s behavior, and we inhabit a shared world that is simultaneously comprehensible and mysterious.’ The important point to remember is not the nature of the relationship with their dogs that, like me, Rudy and Wedde think they have, but that not all dog–human relations are like this or necessarily even need to be for the benefit of all participants. The idea of the relation between a dog and human being specific to the moment allows me to position myself as both owner and companion to my dogs, who can themselves be pets, companions and simply ‘dogs’. In this way, we can each of us be many things at different times and in different circumstances.
Outline of Book Content
Following on from this introductory chapter the book looks, in Chapter 2, at the working dogs who exist within the leisure environment. Some of these animals