If dogs are pretending to love us, then they are damn good actors.
I have some issues with Masson’s work. I would have loved it if he’d included a description a dog preying on some animal in Dogs Never Lie About Love.
He covers every part of their natural behavior but that one. If you see a dog acting as a predator, it can be a moving experience. It can also be terrifying if you’ve deluded yourself into believing that they don’t have these instincts. For someone like Masson, I think he would find it rather disconcerting.
He’s also one of those animal rights people who talks about these issues in a way that reminds me of how the Christian right talks about abortion.
The fact that he’s on the left makes no difference. It puts me off.
I think a better discussion of the issues can be found here.
That said, I do believe most birds and mammals do have emotions and can experience pain and suffering. And all of them will experience a certain level of suffering at they live their lives.
Most wild animals die horrific deaths. A hunter’s bullet causes far less suffering than the other “natural” ways these animals die.
We have to accept that this world is partially maintained through death. Despite our intellect, man has not created a world that transcends the simple realities that all things die and in most deaths, there will be some pain and suffering.
We can either deny these realities, or we can work to mitigate them.
And that’s where our focus should be.
***
Why is it that dogs are able to form bonds with species other than humans?
It has more to do with agriculture than the fact that dogs just like making friends.
When we domesticated other species, we culled those dogs that tried to eat our sheep and goats.
Those dogs that formed bonds with our sheep and goats and protected them from predators were given special treatment.
Charles Darwin noticed that most Western dogs learned very quickly to leave domesticated stock alone, while dogs from South Pacific and Australia could never be trusted around sheep. Darwin, like Masson, believed that it was the love of man that caused Western domestic dogs to leave stock alone.
I think it’s more likely the result of this early selective breeding.
Of course, Western dogs are not universally safe with stock, but I have known some fierce hunting dogs that learned to leave pet ducks alone.
When I was growing up, a predatory Norwegian elkhound and even more predatory farm collie learned to never touch my pet Muscovy ducks. The elkhound did kill one duck because it was eating out of dog’s food bowl. The elkhound wanted to discipline the duck for breaking pack rules, and the duck didn’t survive the punishment.
I also know of Walker coonhounds that can kill a raccoon in less than a minute but think the world of their owner’s cats.
Somewhere in domesticating the dog, the animal has evolved an ability to recognize which animals are prey and which animals it should befriend. For a predatory animal, that is quite an accomplishment.
I think some study is needed on this aspect of dog behavior. Maybe this will fit in nicely with the theory that dogs are very good at following rules. Rule following in dogs is being extensively studied in Hungary at Eotvos Lorand University’s Department of Ethology.
I have known Salukis that leave ‘their’ cats alone but kill any stranger cats that come in the yard. My own dogs are raised with little dogs, and I trust them with mine, but I wouldn’t necessarily trust them with other little dogs. Especially ones that looked radically different than ours.
Quite by coincidence, I am reading Ted Kerasote’s “Bloodties” right now!…. As for different dog types and their domestic animal tolerance–surely it has to do with selection over the centuries by the peoples that originated the breeds. Most of the Nordic sled breeds tend to be very difficult to train to leave other domestic animals alone(in my experience and reading), and the people that originated, say, Siberian Huskies or Alaskan Malamutes or Canadian Inuit dogs, had no other domestic animals, and being hunter-gatherers, all other animals were simply FOOD to be killed immediately! I have known some of these type dogs that KNEW they were not SUPPOSED to attack and kill such animals(because of training), and would refrain as long as their human pack leader was there to insist they did not, but the SECOND they were left to their own devices–watch out! And I have seen these guys go to devious lengths to get a chance to massacre such domestic stock out of sight of their human leader! This includes wolf-hybrids I have known, as well. So it seems to me also, that breeds developed along with other livestock, are much easier to train and trust around other domestic animals. And they can most assuredly distinguish between their master’s animals and others–one incredible example I have is a pack of coonhounds kept by a cousin that were purposefully used to hunt and eradicate feral cats(in the days before coyote expansion, this could be a major problem in some areas, as the feral cats were devastating to small game populations)–these hounds caught and killed any cat they could(and were encouraged and trained to do it)–outside of the family Siamese, which could go out and literally clamber all over these hounds sleeping in the yard, without being in any danger! I found that AMAZING!
Ted Kerasote is my favorite nature writer. He has a great dog book (the best I’ve ever read– Merle’s Door).
My grandpa told me a story about one of his Norwegian elkhounds. The dog was fierce varmint hunter and hunted everything if given the opportunity. One day the house nearest the highway was rented to some people who had every kind of domestic fowl imaginable, including a pair of white greylag geese.
One of these geese landed on my grandpa’s farm pond, which was used for recreational fishing and for watering the cattle through a pipe that connected the pond to the water trough on the other side of the fence. The goose took up residence at the pond for couple of hours when the elkhound and his beagle associate spotted him.
They charged at goose, though the beagle wasn’t nearly as brave as the elkhound, The goose took off and flew down the access road that cuts through the pasture. The elkhound was running right behind it. The stupid goose then landed right in the middle of the access road, and the elkhound was upon it. It looked like a snowstorm.
My grandpa paid for the goose, even though the goose was on his property. He told the owners to pen up their geese and other poultry. He then left things alone for a while.
The Elkhound and beagle somehow figured out they were not to chase those birds, because after about a month of being penned, the geese, ducks, chickens, and guinea fowl were free to wander. The dogs had no interest in chasing them.
I don’t know if you’ve been around Norwegian elkhounds but they are a primitive breed that has a lot of intelligence. They aren’t difficult to train. It’s just that some of them have minds of their own every once in a while.
There are two breed of Norwegian elkhound, one is the gray one that is recognized by the AKC, and the other is black. The black ones are much more primitive in their natures. The one I grew up with was half black/half gray. He was gentle with people and even friendly with other dogs. On varmints of any sort, he was a killer.
I can write about this breed almost as much as I can write about retrievers!
One other elkhound story.
Where I went to college, there was an elkhound/chow cross that was always out running around town.
He never was caught by any animal control officer, and he really didn’t bother anything.
He knew how to cross at corners– kind of like Misha in The Hidden Life of Dogs, although Misha crossed mid-block.
One of his little tricks to avoid detection as a stray was to approach you and look at you as if you were his owner. He would just trot along staring up at you as if you were his favorite person in the world. I have had several professors ask me about my dog, when they had seen him walking with me.
Ted Kerasote’s writing consultants:
Please DO write more about Elkhounds! This is another breed I have long been interested in, and come very, very, close to acquiring myself a time or two(and may yet one day!). I am also interested in all the other Nordic Spitz hunting types–Finnish Spitz, Karelian Bear dogs, and the Siberian Laikas, etc. I have read “Merle’s Door” too–excellent, excellent dog book; highly recommended! I am anxiously awaiting his next book about his newest dog!
That’s an interesting observation about dogs and rule following behavior. My mostly elkhound is, I think pretty smart – he’s quite the strategist and problem solver. I spotted him trying to, for lack of a better word, net one of his tennis balls stuck under the tv stand, using one of his longish tug/chew toys that was lying partly under it. He had one end in his teeth and was trying to use his paws to tease the other end around the ball and pull it towards him. And it worked (alas bringing some speaker wires from my surround system with it). He’s also very quick to learn rules and routines, but very slow to words. (As distinct from instances where he’s got a different opinion about what he wants to do at that moment and/or got bored with practicing obedience or what have you.) I think he might really not have a vocabulary of more than a handful of words and even ones he knows, like “sit” or “walk” he doesn’t always get if you’re not exactly consistent in pronunciation and tone. But he really only needs a very few repetitions before he gets that something’s a routine even when he sometimes forgets the verbal commands I used to teach him the routine.
Of course dogs love us!
Sometimes it’s a successful arranged marriage, sometimes it’s love at first sight.
But I firmly believe they love us.
(That said–they are VERY good manipulators.)
As are many people we love.
Masson is a flake, and a harmful one. Before he was inviting elephants to flatten him and producing glurge about dogs, he was ruining lives and destroying families by implanting images of abuse in vulnerable patients and claiming that they were “recovered memories.”
Our English shepherds are fully functional predators. Pip is the bogey that groundhogs threaten their children with. They are also reliable around free-range poultry of four species, and serve as part-time LGDs.
Even the foster dogs can free-range with the poultry, generally after only a few weeks here. Relatively little of this is training, though I both correct and caution as appropriate. They pick up the culture from the resident dogs. This includes confirmed cat and poultry killers.
There are gradations in how they regard the animals that “belong.” There are pack members — humans and dogs — family members — cats — and household members — the livestock.
Don’t get me started on Masson. I was going easy on him that post.
The issues in that first paragraph actually led to a defamation case against the New Yorker that made its way to the Supreme Court.
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=1752
I’ve read several of his books, back when I was a bit softer in constitution and mind.
I would have loved it if that GSD of his would have killed a squirrel. I bet he’d shit a brick.
The last book of his I read, he took a kitten, a puppy, two chooks (because he’s now a New Zealander), a rabbit, and two rats and raised them together. The dog didn’t get trained, so she began to act out. One of his adult cats killed a rat. The rabbit did make friends with the kitten.
And the whole last chapter is about what this all teaches us about genocides and human rights.
The stuff on dogs is less than gurgle. It’s not even piffle.
And yes, I’ve seen the video where he talks about walking up to a wild mother elephant and nearly being killed in the process.
I was going to post that video but I already knew what the reaction would be.
Ofcourse dogs love us, its the free food and warmth we provide that makes them love us, if it wasn`t for that. Well it could be a different story !
Fuller and Scott found that feeding dogs had very little to do with their ability to bond with people: http://books.google.com/books?id=nban_oiYdHgC&lpg=PP1&dq=scott%20and%20fuller%20dogs&pg=PA189-IA4#v=onepage&q=feeding&f=false
The only thing that hunger does is make socialization to people speed up.
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