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Pets join society’s therapy obsession

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Also by Max Schlusselberg:

Physicians in pocket of pharmaceutical industry (November 9, 2007)
Landlord greed crosses boundary (October 12, 2007)
Milwaukee gang rape exemplifies state's prison woes (September 14, 2007)
Second Amendment out-of-date (April 20, 2007)
Internet lacks standard of decency (March 20, 2007)

by Max Schlusselberg

Thursday, January 18, 2007

For the millions of Americans who own pets, I’m sure a good majority will agree that oftentimes the animal is viewed as another member of the family. For me, the co-owner of a 2-year-old Labrador retriever named Tyler, I know that my dog falls little short of a brother. It sounds ridiculous to classify a mud-loving, twig-eating genital-licker as my family member, but hey, I’ve got a cousin who does two out of those three.

Regardless of the species, many people find themselves unconditionally loving and humanizing their pets. Until recently, I didn’t realize what a problem this could create.

As a pet owner, it is often difficult to go on vacation because there is always the question of with whom you are going to burden your animal for a week. Short of the dog slums known as kennels, there is not much option other than working up the nerve to ask a friend of the family or shelling out a couple extra dollars for a dog-sitter. I know there are those wondering why I wouldn’t just spring for the relatively cheaper kennel, yet I must admit, something is unsettling about caging up your dog for a week only to have him come home smelling like he spent the week parked in a dumpster behind a Tijuana brothel.

So off to Florida on vacation I went, and off to the dog-sitter Tyler went. A few days went by, and being the dog-loving loser I am, I decided to call the sitter to make sure all was well. To my dismay, the sitter informed me that she thought “something was a little off about Tyler.” I inquired further and it turned out that what I considered to be my pre-pubescent puppy became suddenly sex-crazed and mounted the cage of a nine-month-old puppy in an attempt to satisfy his psychosexual fantasies. When the sitter went to separate my dog from the cage of the very frightened puppy, Tyler bit the sitter.

After extending my sincerest apologies, I asked the upset dog-sitter what to do about my surprisingly vicious dog with a startling tendency toward pedophilia. It was at this point that she suggested I take my pet to a “dog whisperer,” better known as a dog behaviorist. Not only was the sitter going to report the incident to the county, she also made the demand that Tyler see a behaviorist before she ever accepted him back into her custody.

“Hi, my name is Max, and my dog goes to therapy.” There, I said it. Of course I wish my dog could fix his issues just like I do: hours of watching back-to-back Dr. Phil, strapped to a chair that doesn’t recline, with my eyelids taped open. Unfortunately, the county didn’t see Phil-therapy as a viable solution to my dog’s newfound aggression, and instead they asserted that Tyler should be seen by a board-certified animal behaviorist, of which there are only about 50 in the nation. After several phone calls and literally pages of filling out applications, I took my animal to begin his therapy. The therapist deemed he was in need of behavior modification and perhaps even a treatment of psychoactive anti-anxiety medication to treat his fear-driven aggression.

I seemed to go through a few stages when coming to terms with my animal’s stint into therapy. First I suffered denial: denial that my animal had to see a therapist, a task that even many humans who desperately need counseling themselves find hard to do. Second, I went through a period of anger: anger at my dog for being one milk-bone short of a treat and for digging holes in the family wallet. Now, I remain in a period of embarrassment: embarrassment that I make public to all by publishing a story of what happens when you love your pet too much.

Not too long ago, in the relative scheme of time, my dog would have been an undomesticated animal fending for himself in the wild. Instead, he lives today as a spoiled mooch who hates going out in the rain, and he has joined the American bandwagon of pill popping to alleviate his — what a joke — psychological issues. If I had never humanized my dog to the point where he was above spending a week in a kennel, this most likely would have never happened. For that matter, if I had never treated my dog as a human to begin with, he would already have the smarts to know that you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Instead, thanks to my inappropriately humane treatment of my animal, I am stuck with an anxiety-prone dog going through his “terrible twos.”

Max Schlusselberg (mschlusselberg@badgerherald.com) is a freshman majoring in journalism.

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Anonymous (January 21, 2007 @ 8:21am):

dogs are people too

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