The Umwelt: The Semiotic World Of Dog

The “Umwelt” of a particular organism can be interpreted as the semiotic world of that organism, and “Umwelt is not simply the environment in general, but the environment which holds significance for any particular species” (Wheeler, 101). The semiotic world of a female human and the semiotic world of dog are distinctive in their biological differences and how they can perceive a particular scenario. One scenario is a “perceived threat” where a human female is walking her dog and a threat is viewed through both the Umwelt of the human and of the dog. Their semiotic responses differ, and this essay will examine how emotional response affects their perception, how biological differences alter or enhance their perception, and how the semiotics

The dog, with its heightened senses, can either hear or smell the threat and the hair on its back will rise. The human reacts in return with the same action—making the dog an augmentation of perception for the human. The human and dog relationship is linked, as the dog reacts to the human’s stresses and the human reacts to the dog’s stresses. Their Umwelten experience an overlap and they translate the scenario through each other in order to translate the “threat” and the cognitive body of the human is linked to the dog and vice versa. The female human and the dog become semiotically linked as they both perceive the threat and experience similar modes of reaction. The perceptual worlds of a human and dog are important towards the Anthropocene and how humans influence and change their world. In order to understand how humans influence the world, “man’s best friend” needs to be examined. Humans connect with the earth in many ways, and as a part of the biosphere, an understanding of the relationship between dogs and humans is important to discuss in order to see how humans influence the world. Fear is also a key element in the understanding of the relationship between humans and dogs and the Anthropocene. Fear, in this scenario, connects the humans and dogs, yet within the terms of the Antrhopocene, fear takes on the form of

Fear is a survival response. Fear makes us run, it makes up leap, it can make us act superhuman. But we need somewhere to run to. Without that, the fear is only paralyzing. So the real trick, the only hope, really, is to allow the terror of an unlivable future to be balanced and soothed by the prospects of building something much better than many of us have previously dared hope. (Klein,