You are a dog's mother or father.

You are a dog's mother or father.
They have conquered our sofas and even our beds - although they have their own. They have earned a place in the backseat of cars on family trips, with the right to their own little backpack with their everyday items (which may include a coat for cold days), they go to the doctor regularly and to daycare, they get birthday parties (and attend many other parties thrown by their friends), they occupy our routine conversations, and they also worry us.
We could quietly be talking about our children . oops, but we really are. Four-legged children, in interspecies families. Can you identify yourself? You do . The phenomenon of considering pets as human children began to gain popularity in the middle of the last decade . In 2015, the Oxford Dictionary added the term "fur baby" to its (fur babies) to its official lexicon, recognizing the trend.
The human-dog relationship is not simple to analyze, and the said trend has many layers of interpretation and effects. But the fact is that dogs are occupying such an important and relevant affective place in our lives that transferring to them the role of children seems at first sight totally natural and harmless. Is it?
Spoiling a dog is arguably better than neglecting it. But are we loving them too much? Or in the wrong way? Are we unintentionally hurting them? We don't have the answer, nor is it the intention of this text to pass judgment, but only to look at the phenomenon, just as science is already doing.
The scary and complicated question that also remains is: does my dog want to be loved the way I am loving him? Can treating him like a son do him harm?
This is a really complicated question," confesses biologist Francisco. - Although in the affective field we can see them as our children or as babies, we must keep in mind that dogs have their own way of seeing the world and interacting with it. We cannot alter their "canine" characteristics unmeasurably. We often think that the needs of non-human animals are very similar to ours, and this is not true. Each species has its own characteristics, which must be respected. Otherwise we can negatively affect aspects related to the freedom, comfort, and health of these animals.