If we redefined “dog” to mean;
“dog and some cats who present like and live socially as dogs”
we lose our ability to talk about dog behaviour health, nutrition, protection and care. While they are all valuable pets, and we love them, dogs have different needs and behaviour. 1/4

If “dog” is a social descriptor, we will have trouble at the pet store, vet and special spaces reserved for animals formerly known as dogs like “dog parks”, which are not safe for cat-dogs. The situation would become so dangerous for both the dog and the cat-dog 2/4

that we would end up having to give a special name to the dogs who are not cat-dogs. We couldn’t call them “real dogs” because this would imply that the cat-dog is somehow less of a dog, and the word is now a social descriptor, so we might call them “under-dogs”. 3/4

Then we could keep the word “dog” aside to socially affirm the cat-dogs, who are of course, real dogs. The spaces formerly reserved for under-dogs would have to go, because they are not safe for all dogs. 4/4