It’s a dog

I was wasting time on the internet when I came across a comment about a Great Pyrenees naturally eating the smaller animals in a flock. Of course the comments blew up, pyrenees are well known for the gentle, almost motherly, care they take of the babies under their watch and would never normally harm any of them.

Being a certified member of the human race, I am one of billions and of those billions there are an equal number of personalities, actions and reactions. Good deeds come in waves and evil lurks in every nook and cranny.  Given the diversity of one species inhabiting this planet, why is it so hard to expand that diversity to see it in all the other species as well? Why do we insist on grouping, labeling and moving on? Are we so ignorant and arrogant that we stumble through the life given us superficially making notes of things seen and things done and summarily dismissing them out-of-hand as unimportant?

Any animal lover will gladly take up several hours of your time regaling you with story after story of the differences between animals in a given species.  It’s not just dog and cat people either, rescue groups working with apes, wolves, or elephants name the animals under their care and talk about each as an individual. Can we rightly deem some of these as “dangerous”? Absolutely, according to the commonly held beliefs on what exactly constitutes danger to our fragile human frame. But is it fair to lump animals into a blanket category and use that as an excuse to treat them all as one?  I wish the answer were no, but I’m not so sure.

We are constantly bombarded with stories of the very worst that humans can do, yet our faith in humans in general remains, for the most part, positive. One particularly vicious attack by a Pit Bull and they should all be destroyed, yet a tiny chihuahua, teeth barred, snarling and barking is “cute”.  If the chihuahua was the size of the Pit Bull it would suddenly become a lot less adorable and somebody would be running screaming in the opposite direction.

In addition to the Great Pyrenees I own, I also have a sweet, sweet Golden Retriever. She is so gentle and trusting that she has babysat for new puppies coming into the family. I got her at 8 weeks old, when she was so small and fluffy and cute, I carried her everywhere. As she grew, I was surprised to realize the strength she had. I know, that should have been grouped under common knowledge but wasn’t for me.  The next light bulb that went off was the absolute certainty that, should she ever want, she could tear me limb from limb, and there would be nothing I could do about it. Obviously, because of size, the Pyrenees is stronger and we have a lot of disagreements over me wanting her to move, and her not moving…she wins.

Dogs are amazing creatures because they could do things their way. They could inflict pain, they could maim, torture or kill. But for some reason they have decided to trust us, to let us take the lead and decide what is best for them.  For the most part, we have failed miserably at that. These trusting souls have been loved then tossed aside, made to engage in bloody, gruesome fights  for no other reason than our entertainment, dressed up and taught to do tricks that appear nowhere in their instinctive characters.  We use them to satisfy some whim that crosses our mind, and bless them, they comply.

The only real authority on dogs are the dogs themselves.  I am certainly not qualified to deem myself an expert.   We feel that since we have spent some quality time observing these animals we have a right to speak with conviction on the  characteristics and behaviors of the species.  We are cautioned not to “humanize” our animals, unfortunately it is the only way we have to evaluate their actions. I have a suspicion that our animals try to act human in an effort to understand us, to communicate on our terms, we certainly aren’t smart enough to communicate on theirs.  Several researchers have mimicked the calls they hear from the animals, but just like a foreign language, simply mimicking without understanding leads to hilarity.  I think our animals may be laughing at us behind our backs, I certainly would.  In fact check out YouTube for dogs talking to their owners.  They say “hello” and “mama” and we all comment “aww, how sweet”, but they aren’t communicating any more than we are when we bark or howl or meow.

Will we ever actually understand?  Not unless we can somehow transform into an animal and even then, wouldn’t we have their sensibilities, forfeiting our own in the transfer?  How could we judge without our rational thinking minds that we value so highly?  In an interaction one of the participants has to find common ground in order for an exchange to take place. Isn’t it amazing that dogs have stepped up to do that for us?  They have made valiant attempts to not only co-exist, but assist us, comfort us, humor us, and read our minds.

Is there a Great Pyrenees, renowned for their gentleness, their intelligence, and their ability and willingness to take on threats like bears, wolves, coyotes to protect their charges, guilty of harming a lamb, kid or foal? Probably somewhere.  Is it characteristic of the breed? Absolutely not.  Are humans guilty of even more heinous acts?  Unfortunately, yes, and against virtually every species including their own.  At least let’s recognize that this mythical Pyrenees acted out for a logical reason like hunger or threat or fear whereas the human needs no logical or moral qualifiers to inflict terrible suffering and pain on multiple levels.

Sometimes its a sad world we live in.  Thank heavens I have my dogs to make it all right again.