A Fake Research Proposal: An Archaeological Study of Wear Patterns and Distribution of Dog Toys in a Suburban Environment

As I’m trying to wrap up my semester and get my feet turned toward the new field season, I was invited to submit an application for a small fellowship position at my university. There’s a catch though. Our hope is that one of our new faculty members receives this fellowship to help her get her research going as she starts her career in our department. 

As a result, I decided that I should submit an application that is very unlikely to get funding. I also wanted to have some fun (and it’s been a long semester).

Here’s what I’ve written (it is tongue and cheek, of course!):

An Archaeological Study of Wear Patterns and Distribution of Dog Toys in a Suburban Environment.

The past forty years has seen a growing interest in the archaeology of the contemporary world. This work combines archaeological methods with the theoretical developments of the so-called “material turn” in the humanities. The combinations yields a methodologically rigorous approach to objects with a sensitivity to how the materiality of things contributes to the affordances of things both in the past and present. More broadly, this work has informed a growing awareness that humans exist in relation to a convivial world of vibrant matter that includes objects and a veritable menagerie of other living things, from the microbes that make digestion possible within the gut to domesticated companion animals (Bennett 2009). It is hardly surprising, then, that more expansive views of materiality has informed fields such as human-animal studies which have sought to show how the relationship between humans and animals contributed to the development of human societies both in deep time and in the contemporary world (e.g. DeMello 2012). At their narrowest, these studies tended to position animals as part of a Human/Other dyad which invariably places asymmetrical emphasis on the significance of animals to the social life of humans. Conversely, scholars have increasingly come to recognize the interaction between humans and non-humans in ways that emphasize the human actors as merely one kind of participant in densely interrelated networks that extend far beyond the human, but nevertheless impact our experience in the world. For example, Eduard Kohn’s well-known study of the interaction between human communities and the animals, floral, and landscapes in which they exist has emphasized how the complex Amazon ecosystem exists both in relation to and outside relationships defined by human culture and society (Kohn 2013). Despite this shift toward more expansive understandings of our planetary environment (sensu Chakrabarty 2020), archaeologists have given relatively little attention to the material life of companion animals and they strategies through which these ubiquitous creatures create meaningful environments and relationships on their own terms. I am requesting funding from the Baukol Fellowship for a project that makes a small step in this direction. The project aims to study the distribution, wear patterns, and life histories of dog toys in a small-town, semi-suburban backyard. This study aims to provide insights not only into human-animal relations in a domestic setting, but also to make a preliminary effort to reconstruct the life world of a domesticated dog activity through a symmetrical study of objects associated with play.

The preliminary phase of the current study situates this research in the context of the archaeology of the contemporary world. By emphasizing relationships between things of various kinds and at various scales, this field has recognized that the interaction between objects over time produces results that parallel the agential character of human and non-human object interactions. This kind of interaction between non-human objects is best demonstrated in the famous scenario of a microwave oven placed on a frozen lake which falls through the ice without human intervention (see Wasserman 2020, 172 citing Harman 2002). As the appliance descends through the icy surface, it also corrodes in the lake’s waters and changes its topography when it settles onto its muddy bottom. Archaeological field research has applied these idea in a wide range of situations. Archaeologists have documented the movement of seaborne trash as it follows currents and winds, discarded paper as it collects in sheltered stream beds before the slope and flow carry it seaward, and the Great Pacific Garbage Gyre as it has now come to support new ecosystems which are neither pelagic nor coastal. Archaeologists have also noted the role of animals in shaping the archaeological record. Axel Nielsen’s classic study of the impact of trampling on the distribution of archaeological material on the surface (Nielsen 1991) finds more recent counterpart in works like Monika Stobiecka’s use of the concept of “lively heritage” to discuss the role that animals have in the shaping of heritage sites (Stobiecka 2020) and John Schofield and colleagues have shown how discarded masks ingested by sea turtles during the pandemic have found their way to locations distant from the shore (Schofield et al. 2021). In short, non-human objects interact with each other in ways that go well beyond human control.  

Consistent with these new directions in archaeological research, this project involves focusing on the interplay between dog toys of various types and the dogs themselves. Of primary concern will be an effort to understand how what we perceive as play transforms the objects, influences their distribution within the study area, and reflects the preferences of the dog during both supervised and unsupervised play. Even casual observers of companion animal behavior will recognize that species and breeds have preferred modes of play, and these create patterns of wear as well as distribution within their environments. Over time, for example, dogs will damage the squeaker component of “squeaky type” dog toys which will prevent it from emitting its enticing squeak. Informal observation suggests that dogs will then abandon these toys and move on to either more squeaky variants or other toys. Another favorite toy, tennis-type, hollow core balls will become punctured when subjected to the constant assault of dog’s jaws, and after a brief time of especially vigorous and destructive play, will be cast aside for a newer version. In contrast, more durable toys such as heavy ropes punctuated with thick knots fall in and out of dog play over long stretches of time. Similarly durable solid balls likewise rarely attracts the same passionate interest as hollow-core balls, but the persistent, if low level, interest in the these toys ensure that they are rarely abandoned in the study area. 

A working hypothesis suggests that more durable toys continue to move around the study area over longer periods of time. Less durable toys will show greater movement over short periods of time, but when damaged, become abandoned and cease to attract the dog’s attention. In effect, the material character of the toy itself and the agency of the dog combine to dictate the movement of the toy in the study area. 

Methods  

The methods used to document the distribution of dog toys in the study area will draw upon practices developed in intensive pedestrian survey. This involves establishing a clearly defined survey area. In this case, we have identified an available fenced backyard in a neighborhood in Grand Forks’s Near Southside historic district. We will also map the various natural and human features in the backyard including garden beds with plants that over the course of the summer will obscure the location of dog toys. This site will also provide a degree of authenticity to this experiment and allow the dog to become completely familiar with the study zone. 

We have also identified a candidate dog to play with an assemblage of common, relatively non-toxic, dog toys. This assemblage will involve squeak toys, hollow core balls of various sizes and durability, solid balls, and rope-style toys. 

The will take place over four, two-month periods in the spring and fall of the year. The timing of these play sessions will ensure that the weather is conducive to vigorous play time and that a range of weather variables will occur allowing us to track dog toy use over each 2 month play session.

The location of the dog toys will be recorded every day over the two month session on a printed map of the study area. The locations of the toys will then be transferred into a GIS map of the study area. At the same time as the toy location is noted, we will also record the overall condition of the toy. This will allow us to trace movement of the toys over the course of the day and it will serve as a proxy for the dog’s continued interest in the toy (we determined that efforts to monitor the dog’s activity all day would be impractical). We will also be able to correlate the overall condition of the toy with its continued movement in the backyard. Trial experiments with toys have allowed us to create a series of relatively consistent criteria for the condition of dog toys noting in particular the most common forms of damage done to the toy over the course of play.

If approved for funding, all necessary IRB and animal research protocols will be follow. (To be honest, I have no idea what these are and my hope is that by this point in my project, you’re getting the idea that this isn’t very well thought through).

Conclusions

To use archaeological terms, this study is a preliminary sounding into the archaeology of the social life of domesticated animals as shown through wear patterns and distribution of dog toys. The goal of this project, like most archaeological soundings, is a small contribution to how we think about the material world that is arranged in a halo around our domesticated lives, but is also outside of our direct control. Perhaps this represents in microcosm the parallel between the world where human agency appears to dictate the situation of things and the world shaped by the interaction of animals and objects. The traces left on dog toys and their distribution in the fenced study area offers a small-scale example how non-human objects leave traces of meaningful worlds outside human control.