The Breakfast Thief
Catching and Correcting Your Assumptions
Pants has counter-surfed exactly twice since joining our family. The first was six months in, on a sunny Sunday morning after breakfast. We’d had sixteen-inch-tall shelties before Pants. It didn’t even occur to us to push the leftover bacon back from the counter. Next thing I knew, I heard a clatter from the kitchen and flew into the room, where Pants was horking back bacon like it was her job.
I was so mad. How dare she be so disobedient? What was she thinking? “Bad dog!” I said sternly, my finger in her face.
Pants’ demeanor changed immediately. Her ears lay flat and her eyes got huge. Her tail wiggled erratically and she rolled onto her belly. She looked utterly pathetic and guilty. I could almost hear her saying, “I’m sorry, Mom! I didn’t mean to!”
Except she wasn’t sorry. She didn’t feel guilty. She didn’t understand that she had done something wrong. All she understood was that the big human was making scary sounds, and so she needed to communicate submission.
In the moment I imagined Pants apologizing, I was anthropomorphizing her. This means I was attributing human characteristics, intentions, motivations, and emotions to my very much not human dog. For example, when your dog whines and jumps on you every time you leave for work, you may conclude that he feels sad that you’re leaving him. You’re attributing human emotions to an animal’s behavior — anthropomorphizing.
(The more likely explanation for your dog’s behavior is that you’ve comforted him in the past, which reinforced the jumping and whining. Reinforcement leads to greater intensity and frequency of the behavior. Whine and jump = attention from you = reinforcement = whine and jump)
We do this in our human relationships too, but we call it making assumptions.
Take my friend Lisa. She went for a run one morning and totally ate it, getting covered in dust. Of course, she soon ran into a group of friends. They must be thinking I’m such a slob, she thought, very aware of the streaks on her calves and the dirt on her hip. It was hard to concentrate on what her friends were saying because she felt so self-conscious. All she could think about was her assumptions about what her friends were thinking about her.
Before long, Lisa couldn’t stand it anymore. “I fell down when I was running!” she announced. “That’s why I’m covered in dirt.”
Her friends burst out laughing. “Really?” one said. “I was over here thinking you’d gotten up early and gardened before going for a run! I was so impressed!”
Another friend chimed in: “Yeah, I was thinking, ‘I’ve only just woken up and Lisa’s already done so much!’”
Lisa’s assumption made her feel crummy about herself, as did her friend’s assumption about Lisa. Assumptions often lead to suffering when they’re inaccurate.
So what do we do about this? How do we get off the assumption merry go round?
Well, the first and most obvious answer is to communicate. Lisa’s decision to share that she’d fallen got everyone on the same page. It cleared up inaccurate assumptions and gave everyone an opportunity for a friendly laugh.
But sometimes asking isn’t an option. What do you do then?
Allow me to introduce you to the antidote to assumptions: perspective-taking.
Perspective taking is “the ability to understand how a situation appears to another person and how that person is reacting cognitively and emotionally to the situation” (Johnson 1975), and it relies on evidence.
In perspective taking, we take stock of the evidence we can see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and draw from our previous experiences. Combined with the skill of assuming neutral intent, which you can read more about here, we try to take the other person’s (or dog’s) perspective to find a kind or neutral explanations for the other person’s behavior.
Meet Manuel. He’s met this guy and he’s super stoked about him, but Manuel’s had his heart broken one too many times, so he’s on the lookout for any sign that this new guy, Justin, isn’t into him. Three weeks in, he texts Justin inviting him to a concert together in two months.
Crickets. For hours.
Manuel sits on his phone for five hours (and eleven minutes) before he can’t take it anymore. “Nvm,” he shoots off. “Don’t worry about it.”
Justin texts back an hour later: “What changed?”
This prompts Manuel to consider – what did change? Justin didn’t answer. For five hours (and eleven minutes). Clearly, he’s not interested in making a plan two months out and is trying to find a way to let Manuel down easy, because who starts making long term plans three weeks in? Now Manuel looks clingy and desperate, and Justin is probably trying to figure out how to dump him.
OW. Manuel’s mind is so mean! It sounds like a bully, and bullies can’t be trusted. So let’s look at the evidence:
Justin usually takes a few hours to respond.
Justin mentioned last week that he wants to go to live shows with Manuel.
Justin said this morning that he had the “meeting from hell” today.
Justin strives to be present in whatever he’s doing. Manuel likes that Justin puts his phone away when they’re together.
If Manuel tries to switch from assumptions to perspective taking, he might find four explanations:
Justin is stuck in a meeting.
Justin is exhausted from his meeting and is decompressing.
Justin is trying to be present at work and so has put his phone away.
Because the event is two months out, perhaps he doesn’t think a response isn’t urgent.
Moving from assumptions to perspective taking can be hard when our insecurities (my heart’s going to be broken again), self-consciousness (I look like a slob), or expectations (my new dog should know better than to counter surf) take control.
Which brings us back to anthropomorphism. What were my assumptions about Pants, and how could I move to perspective taking?
Assumption: Pants should automatically know that she can only eat food I give her.
Perspective taking: The bacon was there, it smelled great, and so it was up for grabs. If I want her to react differently in this situation, it’s my job to teach her.
Assumption: Pants was being defiant by counter surfing.
Perspective taking: Pants was engaging in normal hunter/gatherer behavior. Good job surviving, kid!
Assumption: Pants’ submissive body language proved that she felt guilty.
Perspective taking: The powerful human who was much stronger than her was doing big scary things, and so Pants communicated submission.
Pants counter surfed one other time – she stole two waffles off the cooling rack (always breakfast food!). I didn’t get mad, because I had learned something about Pants’ perspective. Until she really understood leave it and take it, she would view counter food as her food. If I didn’t want her to snarf food, I shouldn’t leave her unsupervised around it. In understanding her perspective, I was able to problem-solve more effectively. This is the power of moving from assumptions to perspective taking.
Now it’s your turn: what’s the funniest thing your dog has ever stolen?
My Deerhounds took MULTIPLE hot pizzas off the counter and horked the whole thing at light speed. They had to be confined when it was pizza.
My APBT took 4 slices of bread off the counter *right behind my back* last night. He’s worse than the Deerhounds even.
When the girl Deerhound was a half grown pup, she brought these things home at different times: (all belonged to my neighbor a mile away) a rake. His welding gloves. A shovel. Small auto shop tools. A digging bar. YES. A DIGGING BAR. She would deposit these things on the floor of our garage. Never damaged, just stolen. He banned her from his shop after the welding gloves.
Our first husky Argent took my husband's lunch plate and cup off the counter to our balcony without spilling a drop. When Mark returned from a short bathroom break, he thought he had lost his mind. He soon found the empty cup and plate on the balcony, sitting upright and utterly empty