Lizmo;937648
I'd really like to know what you mean be this. :)[/quote said:
Well, I could probably write a very long essay on the topic, but here in is in a very small nutshell.
Once upon a time, within my memory, and I am not old by any standard, it was accepted that children will be children. They will do stupid things. They will do foolish, socially inappropriate things. Sometimes they will do downright dangerous things. Not just little children, but teenagers as well. And it was believed that though of course they should be punished for those things (that's how they learn) that those things were natural enough.
Now, we live in a society where children are punished simply for being children . . . and if they do something they always would have been punished for, people start screaming for criminal charges. Why? Because we have become afraid of, and afraid for our own children. To be sure, people were always afraid for their children, but the level of paranoia today is simply beyond belief. People drive their children two blocks to school in a perfectly good neightborhood for fear of perverts . . . never let their children have candy for fear of obesity . . . won't let their children even THINK of climbing a tree . . . as for teenagers, they are hemmed in by government imposed curfews, bizarre restrictiosn from their schools . . . my two favorites are the honor student (over 18 mind you) who had moved that weekend and accidentally left a kitchen knife under her car seat (it had slipped from a box) and was expelled and criminally charged . . . and the kids who showed up at a party, discovered there was alcohol and prompty left . . .and were expelled for being at a party where alcohol was served. This is insane. Then there are the little boys punished for playing cops and robbers (this is standard fare these days) . . .
We are so afraid of and for our children that we strangle them with control. The idea of a child, or even a teenager, acting independently, and god forbid, making a mistake is simply unbearable. It must be punished. Harshly. Both child and parent. Perhaps in a way that will ruin the child's life . . . but that's what the dangerous little brat deserves, of course.
And then, of course, there is what happens to adult human males who are fond of children. Not in any purient way, they just like kids. They better have some of their own, because no one is letting them NEAR theirs.
The same thing has happened to dogs. Yes, there were advantages to the good old days, and there were bad points to them too. But I remember when dogs were considered to be, well dogs. Largely friendly animals that were kept by perfectly normal people. Pretty much everyone knew a dog or two, even if they didn't have one. Although children were taught not to mess with a strange dog, they were also not taught to fear dogs. The reaction of many adults to a strange dog was "here boy!" to look for its collar, not a panicked retreat to their car to call the police on the cell phone because a pit bull is loose. When a well behaved dog off leash in a park was simply not a big deal . . . its fear . . . fear that our little darlings will be mauled by a pit bull . . . moreover a deep and abiding fear of what can not be absolutely controlled.
Dogs can be trained, but they can not be controlled. They are not robots. Most people know this, even if they don't really admit it. And in our paranoid, fearful society, the idea of a large animal with sharp teeth that can not be absolutely controlled terrifies some people. To many it is unbearable. To be sure, the media feeds it, but I am convinced the core of the problem is this. Dogs are autonomous living things that have the potental to be dangerous . . . therefore they ARE dangerous and must be as hemmed in with restrictions as our children are. If a dog makes a mistake, from knocking someone down to scraping them with their teeth in play, to a fully justified snap, then it must be punished . . . harshly . . and that means death for the dog and charges against the owner.
Our society is in many ways so safe, that we leap in terror at boogy men and news stories. It is so safe that we must exterminate the threats that remain, even if, like the threat posed by dogs and children, they are largely imaginary. In fact, our society is so safe, by the standards of history, that some misfire in our brains keeps insisting there must be danger around every corner, even when, by the standards of history, we live remarkably safe and stable lives.
The result of this self-devouring fear afflicting our society (and it was there before 9/11) is a total lack of trust. By this I do not mean we should, or we ever did, trust blindly. But the basic trust that most dogs, most children, most teenagers, most adults, are ok. (I am reminded of the recent indicent of a child that was lost in a mall for nearly a day . . . why? Because they had been so taught about stranger danger that they would not approach ANYONE for help . . . all adults other than their parents are bad.)
That chldren will be children, teens will be teens, dogs will be dogs. That accidents happen. That people make mistakes. In our fear, in our need to control all possible 'dangerous' things, we have forgotten this.
With some reserach and more time, I could keep going . . .
BCs were bred to herd but many of them thrive off of getting to do agility nearly every day instead.
