There’s a certain kind of truth that only emerges when you’re sitting on the dog couch. Not your couch, mind you. The dog couch. You know the one. The fur-dusted, sun-warmed, slightly lopsided because a 10-pound dictator dachshund has claimed it as sovereign territory. That one.

It’s in that half sipping lukewarm coffee, half fending off an unsolicited dog tongue to the face moment that I had a revelation: I call my dogs by other animal names. Regularly. Enthusiastically. Without pause or explanation.

“Get over here, you little monkey!” I coo at one.
“Easy, horsey,” I mutter as the bigger one barrels down the hallway like it’s the Kentucky Derby.
“Aw, my sweet bunny,” I whisper to the tiniest one, who looks absolutely nothing like a rabbit and yet somehow hops when excited.

What kind of identity crisis am I inducing here? Are my dogs forming a furry existential support group behind my back? “She called me a monkey again today,” one sighs. “At least she didn’t call you a platypus,” the other groans.

It’s not just me, is it? There’s something oddly meta going on here. Our dogs have become too human in which they are snuggling under blankets, giving us side-eyes, demanding cheese like royalty, and we, in our infinite weirdness, need to re-animalize them. We reach deep into the animal kingdom to describe their personalities, movements, and moods. Like an emotional taxonomy exercise.

Because when your dog looks at you with the judging eyes of a raccoon and the emotional range of a Shakespearean actor, “dog” just doesn’t cut it anymore.

This is how society collapses. First, we anthropomorphize. Then we zoomorphize. And next thing you know, we’re buying bunny harnesses for our chihuahua-horse hybrids and letting them pick their own streaming content.

So here’s my takeaway, delivered fresh from the fur-lined throne of canine contemplation: we’re all just trying to make sense of the chaos. And sometimes, the best way to do that is by calling your dog a monkey while discussing global politics or the clutter that is your inbox.

Because really, isn’t life just a little easier to take when you’ve got a couch, a pseudo-bunny-horse-dog, and a sense of humor?