By Solana Kline; [Dog-rescue advocate, honorary four-legger, and hopeful romantic]
Yes indeed, these are the days of miracle and wonder as Mr. Paul Simon once crooned. But these are also the days of Cat Dad.
cheese our family photo
Cat Dad is an unfortunately common phrase found on dating profiles of men in their forties. I had hoped I left this behind when I moved from the Pacific Northwest, assuming it was a Portland Hipster fad, but no, Cat Dad persists. Now, this is nothing against the cats themselves, of course. Cats ain’t no canine, but they are miraculous creatures, too.
The rub with Cat Dad lies more in the type of man that proudly proclaims himself as such in the online dating world. He usually sports some sort of ironic tie-dye t-shirt with a unicorn blazoned across the front, or dons an old ugly Christmas sweater sourced from the nearest over-priced thrift store. Both tend to be paired with an ironic mullet and mustache duo.
Cat Dad symbolically represents all of the unbelievable strange of dating in your forties with our current technologies: endless online marketplaces to shop for your mate, people catfishing and ghosting one another, assuming their date miraculously won’t notice they are seven inches shorter, fifteen years older, and fifty pounds heavier than their profile, avoidance to actually meet in real life, or (heaven forbid) speak on the telephone instead of texting.
Jeesh, I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
Now, you might be asking yourself, what in the world does this have to do with four-leggers? Well, after many years trudging through the sea of divorced-dads-finding-themselves, I have come to the conclusion that my dogs are definitely the best Chuck Woolery I could hope for!
The wise older feller in the movie, Must Love Dogs said: “Why one human being is attracted to another is one of the great mysteries of the world”. (You know, the film with Diane Lane and John Cusack.) Lane’s character wrote “Must love dogs” in her first online dating profile, and Cusack’s character pretended he had a dog to curry favor. Lane’s dog likes Cusack right off the bat and she trusts her pup’s judgement and intuition, even more than her own.
I consider it a legitimate scientific experiment now, after many rigorous trials. I send Betty and Mickey over to greet my date before I even meet them. And boy, do they read the room right. It’s definitely a curiosity to see men interacting with new dogs and the pups reacting to their energy, actions, vocal patterns, and scent. And, while I like to think that I am a fairly good read on character, the dogs have pointed out red flags in the first thirty seconds of meeting someone that would have taken me months to weed out.
Our pack has seen it all: The man who is offended that Mickey won’t come say hi; the man that the dogs pile on top of for snuggles immediately; the man that both dogs listen to the first time he calls them; the man that the pups are alert and on edge around; and, of course, the man who is so grounded and present that the pups play in the same relaxed joy as if he’d been in our pack for years.
A small part of it, of course is me knowing these hounds so dang well, being familiar with their behaviors and reactions. But the rest is all them. They allow themselves to be fully in tune with their instincts and real-time observations.
While humans are preoccupied with the physical attractiveness of their prospective mate, or daydreams of love at first sight, or lost in the oxytocin highs, our pups remain vigilant to their instincts—sniffing out all of the juicy realities of this new human.
Canine intuition with new humans is very similar to how they read other dogs: they use their senses, past experiences, and the setting to guide their interpretations. Their senses are acutely attuned to the visual bodily cues, scents, movement patterns, energy states, and sounds of a new animal they encounter. They are experts at reading body language of their own species as well as that of humans.
Pack animals (dogs and humans alike) survive because we can read each other in these ways.
Have you seen your pup react to another doggoe that’s bristled and on high alert? Or interpret the slightest of growl from a packmate when they get too close to their new knucklebone?
Aside from what they are hearing from their fellow canines, their sense of smell is particularly interesting in that all animals emit varied scents depending on the which emotion they are feeling, and this happens nearly immediately when their mood changes—with humans being a particularly odiferous bunch due to our external sweating mechanisms, like armpits.
Our pups combine these sensory inputs with their own past experiences to make a judgement on this new animal in their presence and determine how they are going to interact with them. When they are with us, they also sense our emotional state when a new human or other animal comes into our pack’s sphere.
If you’re the pack leader, they’ll usually adopt the energy that you’re feeling, demonstrating the emotional intelligence and awareness far superior to most humans, I reckon.
When they’re gauging the trustworthiness of new humans specifically, canines are particularly adept at reading facial expressions and seeing if those match the energy state and vocal tones that the human is enacting. If a human is feeling anxious and scared but is trying to convince their pup that everything is okay by smiling and speaking in a high tone, the dogs won’t fall for it—they can smell you.
Essentially, they can sense the regulation or dysregulation of a human’s nervous system—that is, whether a person is calm and predictable, or high-strung and unpredictable. And they behave accordingly.
Notice the next time your pup is around a new person, how much distance do they keep from that human? What does their body language tell you? Are their ears and tails in a relaxed position or perked in alert or emergency modes?
people with a milk shake
Depending on our doggoes’ past experiences with different types of humans and other animals, they’ll act and react in a myriad of ways based on their intuitive read on any new person you bring into their world. If you’re in tune with your specific pup’s behaviors and body language, they’ll tell you everything you need to know about a person in your presence.
In the dating world, this really is the ace-up-your-sleeve. I have seen my shy-boy Mickey immediately lay on top of one of my first dates that had the kindest energy. And the ever-vigilant warrior Betty walking or standing between me and a new date that had anxious mannerisms and tones.
In every dating scenario, the pups’ interpretations of these new people were dog-gone spot-on with my gut reactions (even if I didn’t listen to them right away because he may have been a particularly good lookin’ cowboy).
Needless to say, I now make all of my first dates dog walks.
So, when you’re out there looking for love, remember to bring your four-leggers and learn to tune back into our own animal instincts by learning from our tail-ed packmates and trusting our guts again.
Until next time, keep on spreading the love and good vibes with happy tails and happy trails.
