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Every dog whenever the task at hand requires zero dogs.

Patriarchy doesn’t even leave our pets alone. Cats are clearly female coded: they’re domestic, clean, elegant, and also you can become a crazy old cat lady. Dogs, with the exception of certain small breeds, are male coded: outdoors, action, dirt! In children’s media a cat character is most likely to be female, a dog character is male. Even without gendered nouns (in German “cat” is female and “dog” is male), English speaking kids often think that “cats are girls and dogs are boys”. With this in mind, you should think that I’m the lone woman in a group of men at doggy school, right?

Nope. There’s occasionally a guy, but the main human partner for most dogs is a woman. Since I doubt that most dogs are a “I made puppy eyes at my husband until he thought it was easier living with a dog than with a wife who wants a dog” situation like ours, something doesn’t add up and I took it totally scientifically to Mastodon for a poll.

I know that the results are not in any way representative, but there was a tendency that I find interesting:

If the dog went to doggy school, the main person responsible was almost always a woman. If the couple was fine without doggy school, the dog duties were more equal. In no group did men do the majority of care and training.

What was also interesting were the conversations in the comments below. One guy remarked that most doggy schools are run by women and apparently men do have a huge problem with going to a woman and admit that they need her expertise. He furthermore counted that his wife is indeed a certified dog trainer, and he is not, but that when he’s around for some reason, the men will flock to him and ask him for his opinion, but argue with his wife.

There’s a saying that men want children like children want a dog. Apparently men also want dogs like children like dogs