Projecting Peeves Onto Our Pets
By Susan McCullough
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday , March 16, 2000

Before my daughter was born, I was terrified. Unlike other new moms-to-be, though, my terror had nothing to do with the fact that I knew zip about baby care. Nor did I worry that our apartment would be awfully crowded once she arrived. I was afraid my heart would become too crowded.

Till then, my "child" had been a 10-year-old mixed poodle named Molly. I doted on this dog in every way imaginable, much to my husband's amusement. But now that I was about to become the mother of a human child, I worried that somehow my love for Molly would prevent me from loving the baby--or that my love for the baby would grow at the expense of my feelings for my dog.

Was this a normal fear for a pet-owning new mom? Perhaps. But according to psychologist Joel Gavriele-Gold, it's very possible that my worries about Molly had less to do with her than with some unresolved issues within myself.

"The role pets play in our relationships is huge," says Gavriele-Gold, whose new book, "When Pets Come Between Partners" (IDG Books Worldwide, $14.95), describes the forms those roles can take.

More often than not, Gavriele-Gold says, people who appear to be in conflict over a pet aren't really dealing with the pet at all. Instead, the animal is a stand-in for a person from one's past, or even for oneself. In other words, when we're fighting with ourselves or someone else over Fido's care, Fido may not really be Fido.

In my own case, Molly probably represented myself as a little girl who was about to become an older sister, Gavriele-Gold suggested. I may have found that when my new baby brother joined the family, I got a lot less attention. Unconsciously, I was projecting my memory of that long-ago loss onto my dog.

Projection--seeing ourselves in our pets--is one way that we use our companion animals to avoid dealing with what's really bothering us. Other times, though, our pets are a link to someone else.

Suppose, for example, a couple disagrees over how to share the care of an elderly dog. The husband dotes on the old pooch until the animal has a toileting accident, loses its dinner or does something else that makes a mess and requires a clean-up. At that point, he insists that his wife do the messy work, much to her frustration. Interestingly enough, though, such squeamishness doesn't extend to the couple's young son; the husband unhesitatingly changes the child's diapers and cheerfully deals with other little-kid messes. What's going on here?

"I would want to know what kind of messes this guy was responsible for cleaning up as a kid," Gavriele-Gold says. For example, there might have been a troubled parent or sibling whose difficulties would throw the entire family into turmoil--and somehow, the dog of today reminds the husband of those individuals.

Conversely, the problem may be rooted not in the past, but in the future. The husband may equate the old dog with elderly parents and fear what the future holds as they all age. Either way, though, the dog isn't the issue.

Even if the pet appears to play an active role in a couple's conflict, the animal generally isn't the real problem. For example, Gavriele-Gold knows of an English setter who sleeps in the same bed as its owners, a longtime married couple. The setter, who is very close to the husband, hogs the space on the wife's side of the bed. The couple argues over whether to correct this behavior--and if so, how. The husband feels sorry for the dog, who only wants to be with its "daddy." Meanwhile, the wife seethes over the setter's attempts to boot her out of her own bed.

"The dog has a lead role in this drama and is playing it very well," Gavriele-Gold says. Still, he hypothesizes that this couple "has real issues concerning anger, feeling anger and knowing how to deal with it. They may have silently agreed to use the dog to let out their hostility toward each other in a controlled manner. That keeps them from arguing about stuff that would split the relationship."

Dogs aren't the only pets that we use to divert ourselves from what's really bothering us. I know of a cat-owning couple who disagree over how much to feed their feline. The wife wants to hold the line at a certain amount so the kitty doesn't get fat. The husband feels sorry for the cat and slips in extra food or treats when he prepares its meal.

"This sounds like a who-is-the-better-parent competition," Gavriele-Gold observes. "Daddy gets to be the good guy while Mommy is the disciplinarian."

In all these instances, people are focusing on their pets instead of dealing with their own unfinished emotional business, Gavriele-Gold says. These diversionary tactics, repeated often enough, can become ongoing psychological dramas in which our companion animals play various roles, he says. We enact them over and over again in an effort to bring about outcomes happier than those that occurred in the past.

Throughout this process, "the pet is a mirror for all the stuff going on inside ourselves," Gavriele-Gold explains. "If we don't want to feel uncomfortable feelings such as anger, jealousy, envy, disappointment, rejection--all the feelings that go along with the people that are important to us growing up--then the other people in our present lives had better watch out." The same is true with respect to "the stuff that we don't want to deal with, that we can't stand about ourselves."

How do we resolve such conflicts? Gavriele-Gold says the process has to start by shifting our focus away from our pets and back on where it belongs--ourselves. He suggests asking these questions:

* Whom does the pet remind me of? Figuring out whether something or someone in your past is triggering your reactions can be an important first step in solving a conflict over a pet. For example, the cat-owning couple can stop and think about whether either--or both--has parents who competed with each other, Gavriele-Gold suggests.

* What would happen if the pet weren't here? This would be a good question for the couple with the bed-hogging English setter to ask, Gavriele-Gold says. "They're using the pet in very significant ways. What would be the same or different about the relationship if the dog were not in the bed? What would they argue about if they didn't argue about the dog?"

These can be scary questions, Gavriele-Gold acknowledges. Still, making an honest effort to find answers can help one "start to get a handle on what's really going on." From there, a person or couple can begin acting on what's been learned, either alone or with the help of a mental health professional. The important thing, says Gavriele-Gold, "is to take back the stuff that belongs inside yourself but has been played out with a pet."

That way, he says, Fido can go back to being just Fido--and you can be a better you.