With the death of our Siberian Husky, Cheetah, last February, we adopted another Husky in May. This dog had been very badly abused, and she was reacting very poorly to our attempts at affection. Now, this may sound like a dog story, and for a part it is, but it is also a people story with something to think about.
Duchess was two years old when we got her. She was about 30 pounds. Her fur was mottled. Her tail was stringy. Her previous owner did not care for her like he should have. Her coat was so bad because she did not get enough nutrition. She was so terribly under weight because she wasn’t getting enough to eat. (In fact, she will never become a normal full sized dog because she never got the proper nutrition when she was young.) But the worst part was that as much as this dog wanted to be loved, if anyone came near her quickly, invaded her space, or grabbed her collar, she would snap at them, even bite.
The foster home that she ended up in broke her of much of the snapping, but it was still there. In the first couple days after getting her, both my wife and I almost got our faces taken off by the dog. All we were doing was trying to pet her or give her a hug.
Now, 10 months after we got her, she is a very loveable dog. Her coat has grown out and she weighs in around 45 pounds (which is the biggest she will ever get). She loves her people and knows that they love her. But now and then, we will surprise her, and her first reaction (actually an ingrained reaction) is to snap. She knows that it is the wrong thing to do, but old habits die hard. (She loves people, but I do have to keep an eye on her when I let children near her. I have never seen her react poorly, but there is still that chance.)
You see, her reaction is habit, a habit caused be her first owner. He used to grab her by the collar and beat her. Eventually, she started snapping back at him. When she did this, he took her to animal control and showed them what she does when he grabs her collar and shakes her. (I’d like to take him by the collar, shake him and see what he does.) Her behavior was something that she developed in response to the way she was treated.
The neighbors three houses down also own a dog. His name is Bruiser. Although he has a big name, he is a cute little puppy. (One day when he got off leash, I was in the yard and called him over. He is a sweet thing.) I didn’t know until I had talked with another neighbor that the kids that live there would taunt the dog to extreme. In fact, this had pretty much been the regular way they treated the dog. Obviously, the parents don’t know how to properly raise a dog – or kids either for that matter – (no, I’m not going to go there) or they would have stopped the children from taunting the dog as they did.
The other night, an ambulance pulled up to their door and took away one of the children. From what I found out later, he had been taunting the dog something fierce, and stuck his face into the dog while it was eating. The dog reacted and bit the child to the point where he required several stitches in two areas of his face.
Reactions get ingrained in animals depending on how they’re treated. Treat them well, and their reactions will be that of love. Treat them poorly, beat them, taunt them, and their reactions will be one of defense. They will strike out against the person mistreating them. In Bruiser’s case, because he ‘attacked’ someone, he will probably be put down (killed). This all because he was treated poorly.
But enough about dogs. What about humans? Don’t we react to our situations? We may not jump up and bite someone, but don’t we have ingrained responses to certain stimuli? Can’t we react with anger, hatred, even violence?
Let’s take the obvious trip. Let’s look at the nerd that is bullied by the ‘football players’ day in and day out. Is it a wonder that some of them snap and reach a point where they will bring a gun to school and shoot the people bothering them?
How about the employee that is poorly treated by his boss every day. Are we surprised when he reacts in anger? Are we surprised when some of them go postal? I’m not.
We are a product of our environment. And how we are treated (or mistreated) is part of our environment. It’s one thing to mistreat a dog where the level of instinct that they react from is based on simple survival. To mistreat a person is something else. A person has a good deal more cognitive thought involved with them. They can react on many levels instead of just the basic survival one. But even they can be pushed too far where they think they need to physically strike out to survive. And at that point, they could have been pushed to where they feel they can’t survive. That is when they strike out in violence at anyone (and sometimes everyone) around them.
Please, let’s take a look at how we treat each other. Then maybe we’ll take a look at how we treat ourselves too. Because we have to give ourselves the same consideration and same chances that we give others. We’ve heard that everything starts at home. Well, home is in our heads. That is where everything starts. Make it a happy place.