@alaskanaurora Yes, exactly, it’s this “prove my dog is a good dog, which shows that I’m a good person” almost virtue signaling thing. Which I again was also guilty of, so I feel like I can really speak to that mindset. Like I really wanted to show off my dog as this super obedient dog, super tolerant, good at being handled. And she is! She is all that! Even as a puppy, during training classes she would be used as the “model dog” for the trainer because she is SO responsive to humans (it’s those shepherd genes). And I would be so proud and almost like, purposefully inserting her into situations where her behavior could be shown off?
But I think I had an epiphany as my own human child started to get bigger, started talking. I was like wait…I’m kinda treating my dog like a child pageant star? And I hate parents who do that to their real kids so why am I doing it to my dog?…
And I just totally dropped the whole thing since then.
I’m still in certain forums for dogs and see a lot of this same mindset I had before. I don’t judge since I was in that same space before, and there’s no right or wrong, but it’s just interesting.