The Modern “Pet” Environment

Imagine being involuntarily stuck on an airplane for an eight-hour flight every day only to land, greet your family, walk around the airport, use the restroom, and step outside for a few moments of fresh air—before returning to the terminal and waiting to board the plane again alone in the morning. It would get old really fast. Just imagine what it must be like for your dog, if he is anything like the average “pet” dog, to have such limited space, limited movement, and limited access to the outdoors on a daily basis. That life, even if pleasant enough, can become maddeningly unfulfilling, repetitive, and frustrating.

Your dog’s only apparent option is to find ways to get any interesting game going to pass the time—breaking into the garbage, chewing the table, stealing your socks, chasing the kitty, barking at the TV, whining at you while you’re on the phone. We call that misbehavior. But, for many of our pet dogs, this is life. And sometimes they are losing their ever-loving minds over it.

With all of the realistic demands of modern life you are facing and only so many hours in a day to meet them, there is only so much you can do. And there is only so much he can do. The reality is that a pet environment—for most dogs, regardless of what they were bred to do—is almost entirely indoors and highly inactive. It can cause sensory overload due to the lack of emotional and physical outlets for the dog, even as it is simultaneously impossibly boring for him. Without a way to take any action or control his environment, his senses can feel ready to burst. Think eight-hour delay in a crowded international airport and you’ll have the idea.

While you are living a busy life, it can easily escape your attention that your beloved dog might be struggling. You make every effort to meet his needs, but you have to go to work and pay the bills. You need to go to the store and the post office, have to return those phone calls and emails. You really are doing everything you know to do as a pet owner, giving him everything you possibly can while still making a living and having a life.

But this kind of domestic life is taking a toll on him. He doesn’t have the option of doing something else, of getting his own life or hobbies. He can’t just decide to get off the plane and walk out of the airport to other horizons. He relies on you, his doting keeper, for absolutely everything in his life. You are responsible for his meals, his health, his entertainment, his social life, his exercise, and ultimately his sanity.