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I have the following example from this blog post:

"Your dog gets some kind of reward when they bark. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it."

Should it actually be:

"Your dog gets some kind of reward when it barks. Otherwise, it wouldn't do it."

If the first example is actually correct, can you please tell me why. I thought when talking about a single thing, you should always say "it" as opposed to "they".

Decapitated Soul
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themrdan
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    Yes, you are right. The site makes a lot of sense, but might need a little copyediting. Your dogs get some kind of reward when they bark. – Yosef Baskin May 10 '21 at 14:38
  • If you type "Why does my dog bark" into Google, you will see that most of the results are referring to "your dog" as they/them. So, are they all making a mistake or are you meant to use third-person in this context? – themrdan May 10 '21 at 14:46
  • I would rewrite to avoid: Dogs get some kind of reward when they bark. Otherwise they wouldn’t do it. – Jim May 11 '21 at 06:31

4 Answers4

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Would you call your spouse "it"–well, you might if you didn't get along–but generally speaking you'll use the most appropriate pronoun for that person's gender.

Likewise, dog owners refer to their pets with names, terms of endearment or gendered pronouns (he, she).

If we didn't know the sex of a dog, we can use the neutral pronoun "it", but its owner always knows, and for many owners, their pets are permanent members of the family.

By using the singular "they" people are still including a dog, regardless of its sex, as a member of the family household. "They" sounds more "humane" and friendlier than "it".

Mari-Lou A
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1

Singular they can be a contentious topic, but people use it all the time in conversation.

I understand that one would expect singular they only to apply to people, and so animals would be referred to with it, but that's not how people treat their pets. People have anthropomorphised their pets for a very long time (see here for more insight), referring to them as "he" or "she", not "it". So it only makes sense then that when the gender is indeterminate they refer to their pets with they.

So, "Your dog gets some kind of reward when they bark." is correct.

Matt E. Эллен
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'It' is the usual pronoun for a singular object, whereas 'they' is a common pronoun in conversation for a person who may be male or female, e.g. "If someone calls for me, tell them to wait." "Someone's stolen my laptop. If I ever catch them, they're for it." It seems the writer prefers to endow the dog with more personality than a simple thing, but can't or doesn't want to give it gender.

2BoldlyGo
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The pronoun rules in English:

  1. Humans are referred to as "he/she" 1
  2. Inanimate objects are referred to as "it".
  3. Living non-humans are a grey area. You refer to them as "he/she" if they are relatively intelligent and/or you want to emphasize their likeness to humans, or as "it" if they are relatively unintelligent and/or you want to emphasize their difference from humans. Either is grammatically acceptable. However most people would refer to intelligent animals like dogs, especially ones they are fond of, as "he/she". Referring to someone's pet as "it" might be considered a mild insult.

"They" is simply the standard replacement for he/she when referring to something that you don't know the gender of 2. That applies in this case.

Notes

  1. Or the person's preferred pronoun
  2. There are others, but "they" is the most common.
DJClayworth
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