Stray Dogs Aren’t Stupid

Here is a heart-warming story of how a British couple went through great expense and effort to save a Thai street dog from its miserable previous existence to enjoy a long and happy life with them in England.

However, another way of looking at it would be to say it’s a story about a cynically manipulative animal that connived to encourage a British couple to provide for it over a prolonged period. This is an exaggeration but I think it does have a strong element of truth to it.

It is in a dog’s nature to make us pity and feel sorry for it when the need arises and perhaps this talent originally grew from the need to deflect human aggression. If, as I believe, dogs developed as a result of wolves taking up a scavenger niche around human communities then one of the changes that would have made them more successful in this role would be to look less threatening and more pitiful. Living close to people means encountering people, and dogs successfully found a way to avoid both the dangerous “fight” and metabolically-expensive “flight” reactions by looking less dangerous and acting less threatening. From there it is then a comparatively small step to actively begging and soliciting our help.

There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong in reacting to dogs with a caring attitude, and in this particular case the British couple gained a great deal from their relationship with this Thai-street-dog-turned-pet. My real aim in bringing up this alternative point of view is to give recognition to this innate and beautifully designed ability that dogs have to influence our behaviour towards them.

[The one thing that I would criticise from the story I linked to above is the couple’s naming of the dog after the Thai king, which in Thai culture isn’t as respectful as I’m sure it was meant to be.]

Learn more about the lives and issue of unowned dogs in my e-book ”A Stray View” available from Bangkok Books (readable as .pdf on any computer)