ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the intensified interactions between the dog and the human. It explains the simultaneous cultural discourses of humanizing, instrumentalizing, and animalizing dogs in modern societies. Training for a fixed goal, such as participation in official competitions with the expectation of performing certain exercises, exposes both the trainers' and the dogs' subtle forms of interaction and learning. Training dogs to perform highly-specified tasks is an exemplary case where the possible and actual interpretations, constructions, and representations of a dog's agency can be traced. Training is an intensified case of interaction and interspecies cooperation. Considering agency from the point of view of being a political subject includes the possibility to self-determine both the objects and procedures of action. At the core of being a human citizen are the initial possibilities to participate in the issues important to the subject, and to express views in a way that seem feasible to him/her.
