Anthropomorphism A Dirty Word?

Anthropomorphism means to attribute human qualities to animals. Is this such a bad thing?
We do this, simply as a means of reference to reference expressions and behaviors. As Alexandria Horrowitz states " Anthropomorphism's are not inherently odious. They are born of attempts ot understand the world,not to subvert it. Our human ancestors would have regularly anthroponmorphized in an attempt to ex plan an predict the behavior of other animals, including those they might want to eat or that might want to eat them." Inside a Dog, What Dogs, See Smell and Know Alexandra Horowitz, Scribner, copy write 2009.
In our relationship with dogs humans tend to ascribe human labels to the dog's behaviour. This is only normal as we have no other point of reference. It is important to remember this, as many feel that ascribing human traits or emotions to dogs is negative. Further to this, many will scorn animal communication for just this reason. They will say that dogs do not think or feel, they are animals and as such are governed purely by biology: they eat, sleep and procreate. Basically many think of dogs and other animals as biological robots.
However, dogs and many other animals are sentient beings in that they do think, and feel. This is not to say that they think in the same terms as humans. Dogs think in a linear fashion. That is to say that if A happens then B must follow.
Thus when communicating with animals one is not using psychic ability, but rather telepathic ability This means a fair amount of concentration is needed to be able to hear the animal's thoughts. The communicator will interpret these thoughts into human language so that we humans can understand the thoughts more clearly.
This is not anthrpomorphism but merely interpreting and using human feelings, and language as a point of reference.
Animal communication is a wonderful tool as it can help the pet guardian to understand their companion animal, it can also help in diagnosing illness as under normal circumstances the pet guardian will have to make guesses about illness as for the most part both dogs and cats are very stoic about not feeling well.The animal communicator will instead ask the animal such questions as how are you feeling? Does it hurt anywhere?I personally have used the services of an animal communicator to find out why my Davina exhibits different behaviors with me than she does with my husband. The answers were very interesting. In addition I have taken some courses in animal communication from Claudia Hehr. She is an amazing person and extremely telepathic

As an aside I have noticed that I have two followers of this blog. I would love to have your comments about this entry and any other issues I have discussed on the blog. I love comments it means I am not talking to myself.