You might think that if anything can unite all people, it’s puppies. I did, until I got one. Since then, I’ve discovered that like almost any other topic you can name, pups are capable of dividing people into warring internet tribes.

The first thing that might trigger an argument is the kind of dog you choose. My new pal, Monty, is a deliberate mix between a standard Poodle and a Golden Retriever. Where I am now they call them Goldendoodles. The hope (though it’s not a guarantee) is that these mixes combine the Golden Retriever’s temperament with a non-shedding coat. They’re also very cute. Good enough reasons to make this choice, or so I thought.



What I didn’t know is that the popularity of mixes like this (akin to Labradoodles, Cockapoos, Schnoodles etc) is the stimulus of endless flame wars wherever pets are discussed online. Doodle-haters work to a script: these animals are unpredictable “designer mutts” produced by reckless, mercenary breeders in backyards and puppy mills, bought by trend-hopping airheads, whose dogs will inevitably finish up in a shelter when they fail to meet their owners’ overinflated expectations. If you want a mongrel, the haters ask, why not save a shelter dog’s life instead of making the doodle problem worse than it already is?



These pure-breed partisans stalk the doggie forums, while us doodle fans huddle in our own spaces, sharing an affection that dare not speak its name. More than once, a fellow owner has confessed to me that when asked in public about their dog they swallow the d-word and mumble a euphemism like “he’s mostly poodle”, or simply don’t demur if their dog is misidentified. I have begun to acquire these habits. When a stranger in a pub asked if Monty was a Portuguese Water Dog I very slightly shook my head and said nothing else.



I don’t want to dwell here on the obvious responses to doodle hate (that puppy mills are just as capable of producing purebred dogs; that shelter animals can be challenging, especially for owners who are as incompetent as doodle-lovers are imagined to be). Instead I want to point out the way in which these arguments take on the same dynamics as more familiar touchy topics, from climate change, to immigration, to religious belief. On both sides there are entrenched positions on the part of those whose opinions cannot be changed, for whom consensus is impossible, who even mean different things by the words they use.



For example, the doodle wars look like a skirmish beside the internet-wide fight over dog training methods. In extreme cases, it looks like a disagreement over what a dog is. For the most ardent positive reinforcement trainers, animals are a bundle of malleable behaviours. Insights from management theory, human psychology and marketing are deployed in sculpting exemplary canine citizens.



For their adversaries in the dominance school, dogs are wild beasts who live among us. Training is a battle of wills where the owner who does not assert themselves — physically where necessary — will be ruled by their pooch. The most (in)famous exponent of these methods, the “dog whisperer” Cesar Millan, talks in almost mystical terms about the “energy” of dogs and good masters. Controversially, he advocates the use of “alpha rolls” – where the dog is flipped onto their back and held, sometimes by the throat – for difficult dogs.



The positive reinforcement people are derided as “treat slingers” by the dominance trainers; in turn they accuse their foes of animal abuse. Scientific evidence is marshalled and dismissed, Facebook battles waged, YouTube parody videos are made, and blogwars rage endlessly.



Ostensibly these doggie wars are about canine welfare. But really, they are about contending models of human virtue. The dog we own, and the way we treat it, are understood as components of our version of the good life. Just like the church we attend, the way in which we commute to work, and our attitude to anthropogenic global warming, our attitude to our animal companions is frequently a matter of passionate commitment, which always entails passionate disagreement.



In complex societies like ours, there are many versions of the good. Ethical views — even whole moral systems — multiply and frequently collide (a process that the internet may be accelerating). As this process continues, our opportunities to disagree also grow. Indeed, our disagreements might be part and parcel of our multiplicity.



For political philosophers like William Connolly, the condition we find ourselves in is best understood as “agonistic pluralism”. It’s not just that we differ, but our sense of self is developed in our disagreements. New identities and versions of the good emerge in opposition to established ones. As we argue, we form ourselves. Disagreement is productive.



On this view, it’s not only folly to imagine a consensus on the good life — to think there could be one is to misunderstand the nature of disagreement. And if we can’t agree on puppies, why would we ever expect to agree on the future of the nation, or the planet?

For Connolly, the solution is to accept that conflict is inevitable, but to cultivate generosity, and try to understand that our own beliefs are contestable, and not beyond reproach. Such generosity is hard to find in the midst of our many internet wars. If you ever lose patience, perhaps you could take a break and walk your dog.