Michael Baugh CDBC
I’ll cut to the chase; it’s empathy. Empathy is a relatively young word in the English language. Psychologists in the early twentieth century needed a translation for the German word, Einfühlung. which literally means “in-feeling.”
When we are learning with our dogs, we can lose touch with our empathy. Our work becomes mechanical, like a list of problems to solve. At worst, we find ourselves in conflict with our dogs. We don’t understand their motivations. We aren’t able to “feel into” their experience. The human mind hates gaps, so we fill the gaps with stories we create about our dogs. Stories about a perceived opponent are never nice. They are always problematic. We cast our dogs as stubborn, dominant, malicious, defective — less than the fictional idealization of what a dog should be. Empathy flies out the window, and we all end up suffering for it.
If all this feels familiar, it’s because humans are devolving into a species bereft of empathy. That’s a pretty stark statement of opinion. Hear me out. If we go with the earliest definition, empathy is existing “in feeling” with another being, “feeling into” their experience. It’s not “I know how you feel.” It’s certainly not feeling sorry for them. It’s about taking the time to be present and aware of another living being. Empathy is about sharing a feeling together, even if we don’t experience it in exactly the same way.
Learning each other’s stories nourishes empathy. Interestingly, humans as a species became less violent after the invention of the printing press. The hypothesis is that we became able to share our stories and empathy grew. People in faraway places read and learned about other people, their tales and fables, their fears and fantasies. We connected. That was the early dream of the internet, too — that it would connect us and feed our empathetic souls.
That didn’t happen. We are even more divided. And we read less. We chatter with our ingroup and demonize the outgroups, whoever they are. Empathy suffers. We suffer.
Sit. Down, Stay. Touch. We teach and learn with our dogs. Most of us by now know we can each even teach our dogs to relax on cue (we can learn to relax ourselves, as well). Why not empathy? Empathy is a learned skill. Our dogs can help us. They can teach us; we know this. They can save humanity (that may be bold, or not).
How do we feel about our dog? How do we feel with our dog? Now, feel into your dog. I love that phrase. Sit with your dog — feel. They’re angry sometimes. That concerns us. How does it feel to our dog? Feel in. Our dog is silly, cuddly and playful. They tremble at storms and loud voices. Can we feel that with them? Empathy is hard. It’s daring — risky. Grief is the price we pay for love. Queen Elizabeth said that. Empathy is our love in action, for our dogs, for our loved ones, for strangers from faraway places.
Here in Texas when the floodwaters come, and they come often, we all seem to embody empathy. We feel together. People help each other. No one asks who voted for whom. We are all just people. Empathy seems to recede, though, when the land dries.
How do we keep empathy, grow it, nourish it?
Practice. Practice with your dog. Cal me crazy, but practice. We learn empathy through experience. Feel it. Feel into it. Your dog will think it’s cool, trust me. Sit quietly with your dog’s being. Play, teach, and learn. Ride the emotions and pay attention. Be present. I dare you.
Then, take what you’ve gained and share it with a fellow human. Open your heart and feel deeply with a loved one. And then (breathe) think well of others — even ones you may not know. Move into the feeling. Listen presently. Trust your open heart. Like me, this is a human being. It’s okay to be afraid. Sit with that feeling together.
I double-dog dare you.
Michael Baugh teaches aggressive dog training in Houston, Tx.
