The Problem with Treating Pets as Children

The Behavior Can Range from Mild to Very Severe

By Traci Brown, published Aug 22, 2006
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Our society seems to treat pets more and more like children. While having your pampered pooch running around in a little dress is cute, it really isn’t good for your pet. Do you really need to go out and continuously buy your pet the latest and greatest pet toy or bed to be happy?

While it may seem like a small problem, it really isn’t. Treating pets as children or little humans can and will create problems in your household. The pampered pet may continuously compete for your attention with your spouse. While you sleep soundly in your bed with your dog, your partner must spend nights on the hard couch, watching TV to pass the time.

This will eventually create more and more problems in your relationship. Your spouse will begin to get angry because you are essentially treating your pet better than them. Relationships have ended over too pampered pets, and even the court systems are starting in on the trend. Now, pets are beginning to be treated as children, and battles are fought over who will get the pet once a divorce occurs. This only adds to the idea the pet has in its mind that they rule the household.

Cesar Milan, better known as The Dog Whisperer works with pet owners to stop treating them like children and more like the pets they are supposed to be. Many owners are afraid that telling their pet no, or disciplining them when they do something wrong is bad. They are afraid of hurting their feelings, and eventually give into whatever they want and desire to do, because of this. Their dogs become unruly and take over the entire house.

 
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The Problem with Treating Pets as Children

Pets sometimes believe they run the house and not their owner.

Credit: Traci Brown

Copyright: Traci Brown

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Takeaways
  • Don't let them run the house
  • Let them know who the boss is
  • Work to change your own behavior as well as your pets.
Comments
Showing Comments 1 - 9 of 9
 
 
if you spare the rod and spoil the child or pet they are going to be unrully.......

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Posted on 04/17/2008 at 11:04:32 AM

 
i dissagree with the writer. i sleep with my boy (pepper my dog) every night. he is very manerable, he dont potty inside and he excellent @ the groomer's spot. he has his own wardrob plus 3 different coach collars that he's never chewed on. i love my boy and ill keep spoiling him. to each is own i think it's kinda cool to let your dog feel very speacial in the household.

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Posted on 04/17/2008 at 10:04:35 AM

 
I agree with Carla Blair's comment. I let my dog sleep in my bed with my boyfriend and there is no problem. The same goes for our cats. As for Monika Fay Zoltany's comment, I dress my pets up all the time when taking them out, even paint their nails. But by doing this, i have not confused my pets to be human. I let them do all the natural things they do minus chewing on stuff they find on the street floor. There is a deffinite limit to spoiling pets just as there is to spoiling children. However, I consider my dogs a part of the family and its great. Even though they sleep in our comforters or on our big fluffy pillows, when we're not in them, they'll sleep on the floor - carpeted or non- carpeted. I dont see the problem with any of this. I know when to say no to my dogs and cats, and even punish them and there are times that I treat them like my children. But through out all of this, my dogs have remained very happy, very friendly with their own personailities and it seems a

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Posted on 01/18/2008 at 5:01:41 PM

 
Cesar Milan is TERRIBLE. He does not train dogs in a good way at all. His method creates fear aggression in dogs and provides only quick fix, not long term results. It's ok to spoil your pet by buying it loads of chew toys, to let it sleep in your bed, to let it walk out of the door before you. What you need to remember is that it is a DOG, not a person. People overuse this and forget what it means. All it means is that you have to let the dog BE A DOG. It means letting the dog do doggy things. Like sniff other dogs' butts, roll in the grass and go on walks, and be with you a lot of the time. Not paint its nails, dress it up in hats, and be confused when he does a dog behavior like pee on the carpet or chew up your furniture. People are so misled about their pets these days. They say Cesar Milan has put dog training back 20 years....

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Posted on 09/23/2007 at 3:09:00 PM

 
Well, I let my dogs and cat both sleep in bed with us. But they sleep with US. Neither of us have to sleep on the couch because of it. We do treat them like children. If they disobey they get punished same as my 12 month old child (maybe not punished the same way, but punished still). Just because we treat them like children doesn't mean that there aren't limits. Do you have children? We don't let our human child eat whatever he wants and do whatever he wants. That would be bad parenting. I think the same thing applies to pets. You can treat them like children, and still be good pet owners.

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Posted on 02/16/2007 at 1:02:00 AM

 
shye, a pet's place in the home is as a PET!!! animals are not people, no matter how much you wish them to be. The neighborhood where I live is full of nuts with bumper stickers proclaiming that their child drinks from the toilet. They let their dogs poop in my yard, let them bark all ours of the day and night, but when i'm in my own driveway teaching my little girl ( a REAL girl pinochio) how to ride a bike, my misguided bunny hugging freak neighbors tell me to keep my child on my own property, and not to let her on the sidewalk, where it will make their stupid little rat dogs bark themselves into a seizure, causing them to lose valuable fur.Get a grip

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Posted on 10/14/2006 at 6:10:00 PM

 
Traci - You're a bit over the top. Not everyone who thinks of their pets/companion animals as members of teh family spils them. I love wacthign Cesar Milan, but he works specifically with dogs and tehre is some evidence (as posted in a recent NY Times article) that his behavioral training methods are quite obsolete. There are always limits to everything, but animals look on us as their family/pack and depend on us for their safety, food and well-being. They attach to us as family and we owe it to them to treat them with the same dignity and respect.

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Posted on 09/20/2006 at 12:09:00 PM

 
I'm all about spoiling your pet. However, I feel their should be limits. Spoiled pets just like spoiled children, can have behaviors that are hard to control.

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Posted on 08/26/2006 at 11:08:00 PM

 
A pets place in a persons home should be A MEMBER OF THE FAMILY! They should be made to feel as a family member. Your pets should never be treated less than that. You can spoil your pets and teach them good behavor just as you would your child. If you choose to bring an animal into your home as a pet then it should be treated just as you would treat any other member of the family and nothing less than that. Thier place is with every one in the house! You choose to sleep in a soft warm bed not the cold hard floor... so why should are pets settle for anything less!? People who think like you shouldnt have pets! You think you are supierior and the fact is you are selfish and you take advantage of the pets in your home for your own selfish pleasure.

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Posted on 08/23/2006 at 1:08:00 AM

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