dog hugs | 2016-04-27

remember that post about action dogs? remember how hard it was to think about those trusted friends giving their lives for their buddies and having that poem read over their graves?

we love dogs! we don’t like them or tolerate them — we LOVE them. so, being the regular humans we are, we want to express our love to them in a variety of ways: petting them, giving them treats, taking them for walks in awesome places, and, sometimes, hugging them.

dogs are cursorial animals which means that they want to run — their fight or flight reflex is heavily leaned over to the flight side. if you scare a dog, it’ll run. if you excite a dog, it’ll run. if you want a dog to be really happy, let him run. if you hug him, he can’t run…

take a look at a dog when someone gives him a hug. see the whites of his eyes? see how he turns his head away to avoid eye contact? see how he sometimes licks his lips? see how his ears go flat?

every one of those is a sign of dog-stress and is a little hint of that dog saying: “dude… i know we’re bros and all but this entrapment thing just isn’t cool…”

i read a good correlate to this in human terms. think about how it feels if someone grabs your arms and holds them behind your back — it doesn’t hurt but it feels wrong and uncomfortable. this seems to be more or less how dogs feel when you wrap your arms around them and compress them.

so, love your dog! run your dog! treat your dog and give him all the scruffles he can handle! just don’t hug him.

here are some articles about this:
Data Says Don’t
Doggone Safe
Why Not Hug Dogs?
To Hug or Not

so far on dog hugs