[Bailey_]

Originally Posted by cell

We should not “mother” our dogs because dogs don't "mother" their puppies the way that human mothers "mother" their children.
Human beings have a different life history pattern, social structure, interactions, communication and care base. Also remember that the complete anatomy and brain structure between dogs and humans is wholly different. Human beings have highly advanced frontal brain lobe allowing us infinite capacity to think ahead, behind, problem solve and strategize. The development of this huge brain and its capacity produces a helpless offspring which is slow to develop physically and mentally. We typically produce one single offspring and provide it undivided care and attention, we incubate our offspring longer and are forced to carry them around constantly for around first 5 years of their lives because we have lost the hair, and they have lost they post natal strength to physically support themselves like our primate cousins. Also remember that it has not been for long in our evolution that we have been sedentary animals who establish a home range, we are still in the early evolutionary stages of branching from nomadic hunter gatherers.
Dogs produce a large litter of offspring who are also born defenceless but develop very quickly. They stem from pack based carnivores whose ancestors have a strict home base that is strictly patrolled. Their young are also born helpless but their defined territory allows the young to remain enclosed in a den site for the first weeks of their lives while they are provided the care they need to develop. The mother does not provide individual care and attention to each puppy she does not have aspirations for each individual, all the puppies are raised them as a group unit. In dogs and many other mammals the weak are commonly not encouraged but instead nature plays its course and the weak do not survive, sometimes poorly individuals are discouraged from survival at the benefit of the stronger, to construct the strongest pack unit, or in the case of dogs who live in a looser pack unit then wolf cousins simply the strong win out while the weak succumb. Mother dogs do not follow the care of their offspring after a certain point they are essentially cut loose to fend for themselves among the others and they have to find their place.
I have no idea how the conclusion was drawn that by saying to not mother dogs as if they were children has anything to do with the idea of “Disparaging motherhood is done by tiny little "men"” who “blame the women and slap the dogs into submission”. Remember for thousands of years dogs have lived beside men not with them as scavengers and hunting tools. It has only been the past few hundred years that people have begun incorporating dogs into the human family unit, it is a relatively new concept that we are still running trial and error with for the most part. Because for many years the knowledge of dog’s physiology was pretty dim people would try and “break” dogs similar to how horses use to be broken, using violence and physical overpowering, because they did not know how to overpower the mind.
Just providing a dog with food, water, housing, and activities does not necessarily make a balanced dog they require ongoing discipline and structure. You can’t just tell a dog what to do you have to show it they do not communicate in words they know you by how you smell and the projection you put forth of your own level of self confidence. I have no doubt in what Caesar says that animals of any species will follow the wisest, most confident and calm leader who can be entrusted to bring safety and tranquility to the family unit.
As much as we try to treat dogs like humans in hopes of getting back the human type affection we desire, they will still treat us in the only way they know how, which is like a dog.

Exactly. Well said.