Michael Baugh CDBC
I call Charlie “baby” all the time. He’s not a baby. He’s definitely not a “fur baby” (ugh). He’s a dog.
Still, I understand why people drift toward treating dogs like children. We live closely with them. We organize our days around them. They watch us constantly, learn our rhythms, wait for us, comfort us. Somewhere in that exchange, affection starts borrowing language.
But dogs are not failed humans or substitute children. They are something rarer: fully and completely dogs.
Back in the early 2000s, author Jon Katz argued that dogs were taking on a new role in human life. In The New Work of Dogs, he wrote that dogs were no longer primarily our hunting partners, guardians, or herders. They were becoming companions in a deeper emotional sense — life partners more than work partners. He saw the shift early.
He was right.
People around the world are having fewer children than they once did, while dog ownership continues to rise. Those trends do not automatically mean one replaces the other, but it is hard not to notice how emotionally central dogs have become in modern life. For many people, they are daily companionship in an increasingly isolated world.
Of course we become attached. Dogs evolved beside us for thousands of years. They are unusually attuned to human behavior in ways few animals are. Charlie knows I’m leaving before I’ve found my keys. He notices changes in tone before I realize my mood has shifted. He can be asleep across the room and somehow still detect the exact moment someone opens a bag of shredded cheese.
Dogs pay attention.
Not the way humans do. Their awareness is different from ours, shaped by senses and instincts we barely understand. We move through the world visually. Dogs move through it by scent. Every walk becomes a flood of information invisible to us. That patch of grass they refuse to leave alone may contain an entire neighborhood newspaper written in smell.
And they live through their bodies in ways we mostly forgot how to. They sprint, twist, climb, sniff, wrestle, chase, roll in things they absolutely should not roll in. Even old dogs retain some spark of that physical joy. Watch a dog explode into a run across an open field and try not to envy it a little.
This is part of why calling dogs “babies” never quite fits. Babies grow into adults. Dogs grow more fully into themselves. The relationship is different. Cross-species, ancient, strange. Wolves came one direction; humans another. Yet somehow we met in the middle and decided to stay.
That bond deserves more than projection.
Love your dog for what your dog actually is. Play tug. Throw the ball again even though your shoulder hurts. Let them stop and sniff every ridiculous spot on the walk. Learn the signals they use to communicate instead of demanding constant obedience like you’re programming a machine. Sit with them on cold evenings. Feel the weight of them leaning against your leg or curled against your chest. There is trust in that weight.
Call them “baby” if you want. I probably still will too.
Just remember: the beautiful creature asleep beside you is not pretending to be human. Not even close. That scruffy, athletic, scent-driven little beast is something older and weirder than that.
A dog. Entirely dog.
Michael Baugh teaches dog training in Sedona Arizona and Houston Texas. He specializes in aggressive dog training.