New York Times opinion editor Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer wrote a lengthy piece observing how the different schools of dog training now represent “woke” and “anti-woke” factions in the American culture war.
While Wittmeyer noted that she has seen a steady flow of political rhetoric applied to dogs in recent years, such as one dog owner vowing, “I will not project colonial, capitalist, or patriarchal concepts on my dog,” she noted that the politicization of dog training has increased thanks to dog-related influencers.
The piece mentioned Zak George, a dog training influencer who has 3.7 million followers on YouTube and is outspoken about rejecting traditional “balanced” methods of dog training in favor of “positive” training, recounting his call for the dog training industry to confront its “misogyny.” He has also “covered subjects ranging from pronouns and trans rights to racism in policing to toxic masculinity and how all of these subjects, in some way, relate back to dogs.”
The two main schools of “positive” versus “balanced” dog training differ on how they try to discourage bad behavior.
“It’s so easy to project ideas of discipline and loyalty and obedience and all this strong leadership — it’s so easy to project that upon dog training,” Dr. Gabrielsen told Wittmeyer. “But at the same, it’s just as easy to project ideals of democracy, equality, reward-based, no-punishment, because it all works.”
“From this perspective, it’s not that the structures of the internet ensure that the culture wars will come for every subject; it’s that the culture wars were inevitably going to come for dogs,” Wittmeyer wrote.
Alexander Hall is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Alexander.hall@fox.com.
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