Pack of Two
The book I was reading as I fell asleep last night was Pack of Two by the late Caroline Knapp. In it she describes the unique bond between human and canine.
And coincidentally, the canine most in my mind and heart right now was sitting at the top of the stairs, where he knows he shouldn’t be, when I woke up early this morning. I wanted to be angry at him, but I couldn’t. It’s because I had just read words like these:
Here I am with my dog. Me and my dog. The closeness feels like a private bridge, extending from human to animal … The causeway is constructed of ritual and repetition and simple moments, of behaviors discovered and then executed exclusively between human and dog, and there is something exceptionally restorative about crossing it day after day.
The bridge I cross most often with Copper consists of throwing the little guy a day-glo orange tennis ball. He runs, jumps, leaps, catches it on the fly or sometimes trots into the bushes to retrieve it, and lopes gratefully back to drop the ball at my feet so we can repeat the ritual over and over again. For some reason, he does this best (actually only!) with me.
It is our “causeway,” our “private bridge.” And I’m grateful for it.
Zoobiquity
Authors Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, M.D., and Kathryn Bowers coined the word “zoobiquity” to describe their efforts to use animal behavior and the latest finds of veterinary science to solve some of the great puzzles of human medicine.
Take fainting, for instance. Turns out that animals faint, too, and can better elude predators when they do. It’s not just “flight or fight,” then, but “flight, fight or faint.” A important lesson — that stillness is another way to fight stress.
Or take obesity. It’s common in the animal world, and studies on dragonflies raise the possibility that the condition might be caused by a parasite, raising the more intriguing possibility that obesity might be infectious.
Natterson-Horowitz, a cardiologist and psychiatrist, has observed first-hand what fear can do to the human heart — and she honed her theories by learning about animal hearts, how restraint or fear of capture can kill an otherwise healthy bird or beast. She then applies this to what is known about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and a study that found a threefold greater risk of this among swaddled (i.e., restrained) babies put to sleep on their stomachs and exposed to a loud noise. The combination of noise and restraint triggers a slowdown of the heart in the young of many species, Natterson-Horowitz says, and calls for more collaboration among animal physiologists and pediatricians. “Powerful yet vulnerable, the heart-brain alliance usually saves lives,” the authors write. “But every once in a while, it can also end one.”
Zoobiquity is big-picture thinking at its best.
Nothing Personal
This happens quite often, especially as the days lengthen and the air warms.
I’ll walk outside first thing in the morning (on days when I don’t leave before dawn), and I’m greeted with a great flapping and scampering. It’s the robins and jays flying away as the door squeaks open, and the squirrels scampering up the tree as I head past them to the mailbox.
But the overall effect is one of breaking up a party. It’s like entering the room of a teenager or joining a conversation that suddenly stops as you come near. The birds and small mammals have obviously been up to something they don’t want me to share. And that’s okay. I understand, really I do!
All of this is to say that wild things have their own world, their own hearts and habits. It’s comforting to know that I don’t belong; it’s comforting to know it’s nothing personal.
Wild Things
Cold air and snow drive the wild things closer to civilization. A bluejay perches on the rim of a wrought iron chair, pecks at the peeling paint, fluffs his feathers — his broad back to the window, a flick of his beak then he’s gone.
Minutes later, a fox trots across the yard, sleek, rangy, in no hurry as he makes his way to the woods. Searching for food, for small animals driven out of hiding.
And yesterday, on the way to the post office, I saw three vultures tearing at a dead deer beside the road.
We may mulch our gardens, mow our lawns and prune our trees. But the animals know we are just visitors here.
Joy!
Six years ago we surprised Claire with a dog from the pound. He was a funny looking animal, advertised as a border collie basset hound mix — but there must be at least half a dozen (unadvertised!) breeds in his pedigree.
Claire had been begging for a dog for months and we had held off, but two days after we learned she’d have to wear a back brace for scoliosis, we adopted Copper.
Early signs were not auspicious. He ate underwear, socks and eye medicine. He bit people. He ran away on numerous occasions, including the first time we tried to get him out of the car.
But there was always something about him, something ragged and rambunctious and loving, that gave us hope. He was — and still is — the embodiment of joy. A reminder that happiness doesn’t always fall into our laps; that we have to search for it, allow ourselves to be disrupted for it, even sometimes pretend we have it when we don’t. Pretend long enough, though, and it begins to feel like we do.
Photo: Claire Capehart
The Sentinel
As Copper has (ahem) matured, his inner shepherd, the genetic tendencies of his border collie genes, have emerged. When he was a puppy, he couldn’t do anything for more than a few minutes. Now, he spends hours on the slight rise in our backyard, using the humble altitude to better survey his domain.
He sits still, but he isn’t idle. His eyes dart to the left and to the right. He scans the fence for sudden movements in the brush. His ears prick at any tiny rustle in the leaves. I have to imagine he is doing all this to protect his pack.
Watching him watch for us, I see a model of vigilance, of doggie loyalty — of what it means to protect and defend.
Dogs and Cats
Over a fun dinner out last night, a conversation about cats and dogs. Celia, who adores our canine Copper, still prefers cats because she’s never met two that are alike, she says. Dogs, on the other hand, are always the same. Panting, licking, looking for love.
I can’t say that she isn’t on to something, but given how much attitude I have to accept in people, I’m looking for something a little less complicated in pets. Loyalty. Obedience. Unconditional love. Or at least two of the three.
Above, a cat with attitude and a loyal, loving (but disobedient) dog.
Channeling Mr. McGregor
One sign that you have grown up: When you start identifying not with Peter Rabbit, but with Mr. McGregor. If it’s been a while since you read Beatrix Potter, this is the man whose garden Peter plunders, who chases Peter with a hoe after the errant rabbit sneaks under the fence and snarfs down lettuce, radishes and French beans.
When I read this book to the children, we identified with Peter, of course. Mr. McGregor was the villain, even though it was his garden that Peter ransacked. Peter, on the other hand, was devilish but brave. Willing to take on the world. And definitely a locavore.
It’s not a rabbit but deer that have turned me into Mr. McGregor. The herd of deer who have watched and waited until our day lily buds are full to bursting and then moved in for the kill. The deer who have eluded the stinky Invisible Fence that we’ve doused our flowers with.
Now I know how Mr. McGregor feels. We looked forward to the day lilies all spring long. We transplanted, fertilized and nurtured them. And then, just when we were preparing to enjoy them, the deer snapped them up.
It’s not just disappointment I feel. It’s humiliation: Deer 1, Anne 0.
Photo: Project Gutenberg
Left Behind
A dawn chorus draws me outside. Bird song, crow caw, the rat-a-tat-tat of the woodpecker. I walk without earphones, content with the music of the morning.
On my way I spot a herd of deer. Three leap across the road in front of me, but with that finally honed sense of suburban wildlife presence, I have a feeling there are more. And soon I spot another herd, five or six of the little guys, grazing on new plants and leaves.
As the two groups merge and bound into the woods, I spot one little fellow who’s been left behind. Forlorn and nervous, he paws the ground with his small hoof. I realize suddenly that I’m the one who’s cut him off from his kin, that he can’t get to the others because I stand in his way.
I pick up my pace so he can catch up with the others. So that I no longer have to see him surrounded by basketball hoops and mulch bags, a creature as out of place as I am.