Not Ours to Name: On Empathy Without Ownership
USMC archive photo, 1954. Reckless eats cake on the 10th floor. He rode the elevator.
Quick Read
Not Ours to Name: On Empathy Without Ownership
By Lluc Pedrero, Alana Somerset & Shannon McBride, PhD
Edited and narrated by Désirée Braganza, EdD, EBQ
Preamble: Ongoing Conversations
This short piece draws from the kinds of interdisciplinary conversations we find ourselves having as collaborators - ethologists, educators and non-human animal professionals who care deeply about how we engage across species. These reflections aren’t meant as final answers. They’re starting points: insights pulled from our exchanges and shaped by our lived experience as a shared effort to better understand the lives around us.
Introduction: The Human Lens
Anthropomorphism - our tendency to assign human characteristics to non-human animals isn’t inherently a mistake. Often it’s the bridge that allows us to care. But it’s layered: there’s empathy and intuition for our fellow mammals and then there’s supplanting our identity onto them to serve ourselves.
That’s the tension we navigate in our work. The question isn’t whether we anthropomorphize, but when it helps and when it gets in the way.
Photo by Georgie Pauwels: Riding School
Empathy and the Desire to Relate: Insight from Alana Somerset, Veterinary Physiotherapy Student
There’s a natural pull toward connection. Alana suggests that emotional attunement, especially in people who’ve experienced less support from family or community can foster deep sensitivity to the emotional states of others, including non-human others. “Those with less family support,” she writes, “develop higher states of awareness / hypersensitivity and, therefore, more empathy towards other living beings.” Check out Albert and Bulcroft’s 10-question Anthropomorphism Scale (1988).
In that light, anthropomorphism becomes a coping strategy as much as a worldview - an attempt to create closeness by projecting familiar emotional language onto another being. At its best, it helps us notice and care. But it can also crowd out a non-human animal’s own way of being.
Selling Empathy Short: Insight from Lluc Pedrero, Equine Ethologist
Anthropomorphism isn’t just interpersonal, it’s institutional and commercial. Lluc reflects on how the pet and equine industries often promote products under the guise of “enrichment,” without understanding what truly enriches an animal’s life. “Hanging something from the ceiling and turning your back on the animal…” he writes, “brings us closer to anthropomorphism, promoting products that lack real meaning and are said to ‘stimulate the senses.’”
In those moments, empathy becomes a performance. The gesture looks caring, but it’s designed to satisfy the human imagination more than a non-human animal’s actual needs.
Photo by Barbara Olsen. This image depicts a commercial horse toy to be hung from a stable and left. While designed to potentially ease boredom, its effectiveness in satisfying a horse's highly developed investigative instincts, vital social needs and preference for live food over processed nutrition remains uncertain.
Culture, Power and the Animal Image: Insight from Shannon McBride, PhD, Cultural Anthropologist
Anthropomorphism doesn’t emerge in a vacuum. It’s shaped by cultural norms and systems of power. Shannon brings a wide-angle view: “No human being can exercise good judgment without significant experience regarding the topic at hand.” We’re enculturated into ways of seeing and often, those ways are deeply anthropocentric.
She points out how animals have become, in many contexts, luxury items or idealized companions. That projection can be damaging. “Even those of us who don’t necessarily feel as though we’re part of a superior species,” she writes, “still look out at the world and see things from the perspective of a human being rooted in a particular culture.”
Shannon traces these patterns through time. In the Middle Ages, a war horse was a knight’s most valued partner, trained to perform unnatural and dangerous maneuvers. These martial techniques, meant to protect human life, evolved into modern dressage, now often celebrated as art but criticized for compromising equine wellbeing. The priorities have shifted, but the asymmetry in the relationship persists. “Color, whether or not a dog sheds, and size,” She notes, “is often prioritized” over temperament or function. A non-human animal’s body becomes a canvas for human ideals.
By sculptor Michael Norris: Feudalism and the Knights of Medieval Europe
Two Bodies, Two Sovereigns
At the core of many of these dynamics is the confusion between two distinct bodies - one human, one not. When we anthropomorphize too heavily, we risk collapsing those two bodies into one narrative: ours. Yet true connection doesn’t require collapse. It asks for recognition. For mutual respect. For bodily autonomy.
Every non-human animal has the right to move through the world with their own sensory experiences, boundaries, needs, and preferences. When we pet a dog who turns away, or insist a horse accept a rider despite pain or confusion, we override that autonomy often without realizing it. Sovereignty, in this sense, is not a metaphor. It is physical. It is lived. And it deserves to be protected.
A Call for Grounded Connection
Across all of these perspectives, one throughline emerges: our relationship with other species could be so much more than projection. Anthropomorphism, when held lightly, can open us to shared feeling. But when left unexamined, it distorts. What we’re advocating for isn’t detachment, it’s a kind of attunement grounded in species-specific realities.
It’s about asking: What does this non-human animal actually need? How do they communicate? What matters to them?
Practical Advice: Empathy Without Erasure
Start with Curiosity, Not Assumption.
Observe before you interpret. Learn about species-specific behaviors through ethology and trusted sources.
Enrichment Should Be Evidence-Based. Here’s an article on the topic in English and Spanish.
Choose tools and activities that reflect the sensory world of the species - not just what looks fun to us. For equines, see McGreevy et al. (2018) and Visser & van Reenen (2008).
Avoid Projection as Policy. That your dog tolerates hugs doesn’t mean they enjoy them. Learn their body language. Let their preferences shape the interaction.
Practice Cultural Humility. Notice how your upbringing and surroundings shape your expectations of animals. Stay open to other ways of knowing.
Respect the Otherness - And the Body They Live In.
As Marc Bekoff reminds us, “Respect for animals means letting them be who they are - not who we want them to be.” (Bekoff, 2007) Respect also means letting them say yes or no, with their bodies, in ways that count.
Photo by Michael Kennedy
Selected Resources & Further Reading
Bekoff, M. (2007). The Emotional Lives of Animals
de Waal, F. (2016). Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
McGreevy, P., & McLean, A. (2010). Equitation Science
Visser, E. K., & van Reenen, C. G. (2008). Horse Behaviour and Welfare
Albert and Bulcroft’s Anthropomorphism Scale (1988)
Closing Thought
Anthropomorphism is layered. It lives in the space between compassion and control, between understanding and imagination. The goal isn’t to purge it, it’s to hold it gently. To feel with others, but still let them be other. Two bodies, side by side. Not one absorbed into the other, but two sovereign lives, choosing to relate.
About the Authors
Lluc Pedrero is currently collaborating with FAADA in Spain as an ethologist for equestrian events. He has developed a scientifically based training course on equine rescue, inspired by the Loops system and the pioneering work of Dr. Madigan in this field. Lluc began his journey at the Centaurides Center for Hippology, under the guidance of Willka Pasqual Neumann. There, he learned the foundational principles of ethology and the practices of the Centaur Method, which focuses on personal growth. He has also studied exercise physiology at TOCES and continues to advance his professional development through courses with other specialists and seminars in various areas. In Lluc’s words: “It is our responsibility as a species to care for horses.”
Alana Somerset is a Veterinary Physiotherapy student at Plumpton College which is part of the Royal Agricultural University in the UK. You can connect with her through her Instagram: @wild_tensegrity.
Shannon McBride, PhD
I am a lifelong learner and animal lover yearning to be imbued with a sense of Thomas Jefferson, Walt Whitman and Zora Neale Hurston. More often than not it is curiosity and a desire for a better world that drives me. I have a BS in Botany, an MS in Botany and a Ph.D. in Ecological/Cultural Anthropology. My work and studies have led me to study wildlife management in East Africa, work at a Raptor Rehabilitation Center in Ohio, volunteer at Red Wolf Sanctuary in Indiana, search for flamingos in the Bahamas, study Tigua Pueblo resource definition and use in the Southwestern United States and Herb Digging in Southern Appalachia. Currently I am an advanced Masterson Method Integrated Equine/Canine Bodywork student. Shannon can be reached at: EqCperformancebodywork@gmail.com.
Désirée Braganza, EdD, EBQ received her equine behaviorist qualifications from the Natural Animal Centre, then located in the UK and South Africa. As a member of Bodhi Horse Practice, she collaborates with equine professionals worldwide on research projects specific to experiences of domesticated horses from an ethological lens. She is a horse partner, a rider, and has cared for and supported numerous horses over the years. Désirée recently relocated from Northern California and is now based in Athens, Georgia, USA. She consults internationally in-person and virtually.
Friendly Reminder: These articles are meant to spark thought, not replace expert guidance. Consult equine professionals for individual advice.