Photo by: Jess Okon

Returning home from the European IACP event last weekend, and after wondering about everything I saw there, a few reflections have stayed with me and feel important to put into words.

The first was a quiet surprise. I had not expected such a diverse audience to gather in a single room, professionals from different fields, perspectives, and convictions, willing to share the same space. I found myself moved by the work of certain individuals who, for instance, foster dogs in quiet anonymity, away from social media, simply trying to make life better for everyone around them. Others arrived feeling lost in the present online tribal wars, and they were brave enough to sit and listen to speakers who would challenge them.

The same plurality was visible among the speakers, myself included. We came from different traditions, experiences, and ways of understanding our work. To me, this was a rare and positive feature of the event, since we have been accustomed to gatherings that advertise pluralism and then quietly reinforce a single mentality, offering almost no room for divergence, challenge, or the simple demonstration that thoughtful people can share a table, agree to disagree where needed, remain respectful, explore the common ground that connects them, and serve as an example to an audience eager to grow as professionals through varied insights.

The second reflection concerns the contrast between social media and what happens in physical space. Across the presentations I attended, I noticed no endorsement of specific methods, tools, labels, or moralistic injunctions about what one must do to be considered a good person. I was actually impressed by the level at which several scientific concepts were presented and discussed without being turned into weapons, by how delicate topics around current legislation were addressed with pragmatism, and by the shared sense that an open conversation among all parties is needed if we wish to improve the present paradigm in any realistic manner.

The third reflection involves my own presentation, the same one I will deliver in Los Angeles next August. I tried to show how science operates in describing processes, and how those processes remain at training whether or not we choose to accept them. My central message was that consequences are only one part of the wider communicative process, and rarely the most decisive one. Everything that precedes a behavior, the way information travels and the way it is received, carries the weight of what happens next. The conversation about consequences has crowded out the much larger conversation about how communication itself unfolds, and that displacement, in my view, costs us a great deal, making consequences sometimes a “consequence” of our own actions during the communicative process rather than of the dogs themselves.

This leads to the fourth point, the communicative gap I addressed in interspecies relationships. Looking back at everything I observed during those days, I now suspect the deepest communicative gap of our moment is the one running between us, as humans. Social media has produced an artificial space that flattens national realities, languages, cultures, and individual differences, pushing people to adopt a single perspective regardless of the lived context in which they actually move. The medium has, in a quiet way, become the worldview, and that worldview has narrowed considerably.

My utopia, all the same, remains intact. I continue to believe in the imperfect, often messy, and still meaningful real world. I hold on to the hope that scientists will return to the role of moderators of dialogue, asking better questions, and stepping back from the role of activists, since we have all seen the discouraging spectacle of scientists mocking trainers online without ever having practiced the work themselves, and bearing, sadly, the responsibility of educating and guiding the critical thinking of their students.

I also believe more and more people are recognizing the hostility and rage of certain voices in our field, voices offering no educational content, only criticism, slogans, and the bitter AI content that algorithms reinforce, voices held captive by their own audiences and their own words, even those still trapped inside those bubbles themselves.

I will follow my intuition until proven wrong. Some of my previous posts have already addressed how I intend to respond to certain behaviors directed at me, and there is no need to revisit those measures here. There is, however, a quiet irony in all of this, since the very people most eager to condemn me are also the ones who benefit, often without noticing, from the conversations I am willing to open. I am the one stepping into rooms they refuse to enter, sitting with interlocutors they would never approach, carrying ideas into spaces where their own voices have long gone silent. A little appreciation might serve them better than the steady stream of criticism they keep sending my way, since the door I am holding open is open to them as well. Some prefer a life built on critique, memes, slogans, AI and labels, and I keep trying, mostly alone as has often been the case, to demonstrate that convergence is possible even where divergence appears to be the only path on offer.

Time will tell. Until then, my feeling is that the current paradigm needs another step forward, and one fundamental requirement underlies everything: courage. Courage to leave our comfort zones, our followers, our bubbles, and to sit at the same table as those with whom we may disagree, putting into practice the very approach we claim to defend. Without that virtue, every other principle we profess remains theoretical, hypocritical, and the discipline we love continues to fracture along lines that careful conversation could otherwise repair.

Thank you all for the trust, the opportunity, and the meaningful conversations we shared during the event. A word, also, on the admirable persistence of the organizers in making it happen, since events of this nature rarely come into being without someone willing to carry the weight of the doubts, the resistance, and the quiet pressures that surround any attempt at honest dialogue. The discussion we need will eventually take place, as history reminds us that no paradigm survives the moment its assumptions no longer match reality. That day will come when enough people acknowledge that the approach defended as “modern” has already become obsolete, having become the very one it claims to have surpassed, and that holding on to either, out of habit or identity, is its own form of standing still.

I’ll add to this post my couple of posts I published on social media regarding some backlash from some individuals:

May 21st, 2026:

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