Working Dogs

“...man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion.” -Henry Beston, The Outermost House

We share our planet with a multitude of beings and organisms. Our body alone is constructed of millions of cells, these cells containing only 10 percent human genomes; the rest a cocktail of “bacteria, fungi, [and] protists”. We are more similar than we are different from every other species or bacterium that inhabits earth.1

My interest for this assignment stems from our shared biology with animals. We are only fractionally different from everything around us but have created a void that distances us from the very environment of which we are part. Our current way of thinking or relating to animals, and our shared environment is plagued with inconsistencies that have allowed this separation to flourish. Arnold Arluke in his book Regarding Animals, explains that one of our “most glaring consistencies is inconsistency”.2 As humans we harbor conflicting views towards non-human animals but manage to “live comfortably” with these views, most often oblivious to the paradox we have created. One example of this inconsistency in western society is how people relate to their pets versus how they relate to, or fail to relate to, non-domesticated animals. As pets we care for, love, protect and provide for animals. We regard them as sentient beings, and as members of our families. The death of these cherished animals is painful: we mourn them. Yet what these creatures teach us about animals often fails to reach further than the confines of our homes.

Photography as a medium and art form offers those who use it a visual means of communication. It is through this discipline that the photographer can show or convey new ideas or reflections on society. With this in mind I chose to photograph police dogs in the hopes of creating a visual bridge that might encourage viewers to realise or simply consider our similarities and connections to another of earths creatures; a step towards better understanding and therefore reduced separation.

Dogs provide a good starting point for this bridging, partly because most people are so familiar with them. They are present in “almost every human society around the world” and have numerous roles within these societies.3 They are pets, helpers, highly trained workers and co-workers. It would be difficult to find a more suited non-human animal as a starting point for discussions relating to our separation and indifference to the rest of the animal kingdom, than using ‘man’s best friend’; a being that we have had relations with for thousands and thousands of years, an animal that forms a ‘bridge’ of sorts between humans and the animal kingdom. Police dogs, of all the dogs, are perhaps held in highest esteem by society. This study creates an interesting paradox highlighting the unequal regard that different dogs bear within our society, and begs the question: should there be a difference, between dogs or even between animals at all? Should our regard for an animal hinge upon whether or not they have been trained to be ‘useful’ to us? It is my goal that these portraits prompt these questions of the viewers.

Comparatively it has been said that the “closest model for a working dog is a working person” and vice versa.4 Both parties having to be encouraged to work through means of reward and both can only work efficiently for a certain number of hours before needing a break. Our ideological separation from nature and our fear of degradation through human vs animal comparisons means little research has been conducted to compare humans and dogs. Dogs have largely suffered as outcasts or “artificial animals”5 offering little to scientists as they have been so “tampered with by people” that they present “little biological interest”.6 Contrarily, however, they are one of our last contacts with nature and could be vital in providing path ways to a better overall understanding of our relationship to the living world.7

Working dogs, or more specifically police dogs, with their complex position in western society, also offer a great example from which to explore the flaws of our simplistic mode of classification. In his book We Have Never Been Modern, French sociologist of science and anthropologist Bruno Latour considers our manner of categorisation to be primitive, and suggests because of this we have, in fact, ‘never been modern’ at all. Latour explained how meaning and value can be eroded from beings and things as a result of our primitive categorisation. This primitivism stems from our desire to class things and beings into categories of either object or subject or ‘part of nature’ or ‘part of culture’. When in reality most things are mixes or what Latour calls quasi object/subjects and nature/cultures. Police dogs are a great example of quasi nature/culture/objects/subjects. They are: ‘part of nature’ as living mammals, ‘part of culture’ as man’s best friend, or in this instance mans co-worker, ‘objects’ as tools of the trade for law enforcement, but yet ‘subjects’ as loyal companions to these policemen and as their family pets. Police dogs, like most beings, should not naively be placed in single categories, because to do so is to deny them of much value and meaning, and simultaneously denies ourselves a better understanding and ability to relate to them.

In order to photographically capture and create images that might encourage a reconnection to dogs and nature, I have taken human-like portraits of police dogs. The idea to take such photographs came to mind as I brainstormed one afternoon

thinking of the best photographic genre to draw all my ideas together. Though this may seem largely an intuitive decision it arose from much of the literature I had previously been reading. Dogs and people, both being descendants from social predators have so many similarities that I needed to use a photographic style that could potentially bring this to light. I also hoped the use of portraiture would also elevate they way we normally view canid’s, the images making my subjects unavoidable to the viewer.

Portraiture as according to the Oxford English Dictionary is:

“A representation or delineation of a person, especially of the face, made from life, by drawing, painting, photography, engraving.”8

By using portraiture I am purposefully anthropomorphizing my police dog subjects. Anthropomorphizing animals and objects is often questioned and frowned upon. Dogs however, in the basic psychological terms I have already alluded, are “roughly similar in personality, emotion, cognition and perception”9 to that of humans, so using this photographic style known for conveying the ‘expression’, ‘personality’ and ‘mood’ of people is fitting for dogs. Further, police dogs as co-workers to their police handlers have also been made to fit into ‘human roles’ so to examine and reflect on their importance from predominantly behaviourist perspectives is shortsighted. Police dogs are trained specifically to work with policemen so to deny them anthropomorphically in my photographs would have offered us no new connections or insights.

What we need to remember, which Mary Midgely has succinctly summed up in her book ‘Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature’, is that “We are not just rather like animals; we are animals.” The separation we all feel towards other animals and our shared environment is ideological. Though humans may be unique we are not vastly different. Our believed distinction from the living world stems from “pre-scientific, pre-Darwinian thinking”10, after all:

“the earth and every living thing [is] made from star stuff.... we are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands”. 11

Footnotes

1 Haraway, Donna J. When Species Meet. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. 2008. p 3

2 Arluke, Arnold. Regarding Animals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,1996. p 5

3 Miklosi, Adam. Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition. United States: Oxford University Press, 2007. p 134

4 Helton,William S. Canine Ergonomics: The Science Of Working Dogs. United States: Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, 2009. p 5

5 Miklosi. p 26

6 Helton. p 12

7 Miklosi. p 134

8 Simpson, J. A. and E.S.C Weiner ,2nd eds.The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. p 189

9 Helton,William S. Canine Ergonomics: The Science Of Working Dogs. United States: Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, 2009. p 4

10 Helton. p 4

11 “Who Speaks For Earth”. Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Carl Sagan. Public Broadcasting Service USA. 1980

References

Arluke, Arnold. Regarding Animals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,1996.

Arnold, Jennifer. Through a Dogs Eyes: Understanding Our Dogs By Understanding How They See The World. Great Britain: Souvenir Press, 2011.

Bekoff, Marc. Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006.

Black, Jason Edward and Greg Goodal, Eds. Arguments About Animal Ethics. Lanham: The Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc, 2010.

Chapman, Samuel. Police Dogs in North America. Springfield: Charles C Thomas Publisher, LTD, 1990.

Haraway, Donna J. When Species Meet. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. 2008.

Helton,William S. Canine Ergonomics: The Science Of Working Dogs. United States: Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, 2009.

Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.

McShane, John. Man’s Best Friend- True Stories of the Worlds Most Heroic Dogs. London: John Blake Publishing, 2012.

Miklosi, Adam. Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition. United States: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Sanders, Clinton. Understanding Dogs. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999.

Simpson, J. A. and E.S.C Weiner ,2nd eds.The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.

“Who Speaks For Earth”. Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Carl Sagan. Public Broadcasting Service USA. 1980.

Wise, Steven M. Rattling The Cage: Toward Legal Rights For Animals. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Books, 2000.