Dogs as family: navigating the parent-child and adult-adult dynamic

When I’m with my dogs, I’m never alone – I’m with my friends.

However, it’s not a fully equal friendship: they live in my human world, and I control the vast majority of it. In this way, whether I like it or not, there is always a parental relationship with dogs due to that power imbalance, and research also shows that dogs relate to us in similar ways as human children and teenagers do to their parents, whether we want it or not.

Even though I don’t see them as my children, I do view my relationship with my dogs as a maternal one because it is my responsibility to care for their wellbeing and provide them with safety and security. I’m in charge of everything from cradle to grave, so they are technically my dependents – just like human children.

At the same time, they can also be competent adults – in many ways, they are more competent than I am!  For some, this seems like a contradiction, but let’s think about it… When people grow up, they don’t stop being their parents’ children. Many people still have a close relationship with their parents in adulthood, and sometimes even behave like they are still children even though they are legally and technically adults. Many people are also not necessarily fully independent from their parents even though they think they are.

It’s possible for a relationship to have both child-like and adult elements – for example, in family businesses, parents work with their adult children, and there’s nothing unusual about that. Similarly, now that both of my dogs are adults, we are friends and teammates – yet there’s nothing wrong with them wanting to lean on me emotionally for safety, connection, and affection. That is what adult humans need, too!

Being a competent adult doesn’t mean we don’t have moments of vulnerability where we want someone else’s support or reassurance. Perhaps the question is whether we are projecting ourselves onto dogs when we say that my dogs can’t have a child-like relationship with me because they are my teammates, housemates, or friends.

They can be all of these at the same time.