My dad and I are both real big on communication, that’s what really makes our relationship exceptional. To illustrate my point, imagine, if you will, your relationship with your spouse, kids, siblings or friends with little or no meaningful communication. What would be the point right? As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, what makes my life with humans special is that I can communicate with them and I don’t mean the basic “sit”, “stay”, “fetch” stuff either. I can communicate thoughts and feelings as well and get a response from my humans. Heck, after almost 6 years, we’ve got it goin’ on and I can get my point across to dad with just a look most times and he understands that I’m bored, jealous, nervous or angry. Okay, to be honest here, I guess most anyone within earshot knows when I’m angr but I guess the best place to start here is recognizing that we have thoughts and feelings.
At the drop of a hat, Dad will engage visitors to the shelter (or sometimes random strangers, for that matter) in conversations about communication with their animal companions. I always hear him say the same thing, that he feels like a lot of people miss out on the best part of the relationship with their pet because they don’t give us credit for how smart we really are, we just express ourselves a little differently, and they never really get beyond the command and obey routine. Boy, I’m sure glad my life isn’t like that, booooooring! Think about the reason why you humans all communicate with such great intricacy among yourselves, ‘cause y’all have thoughts and feelings to share right? You’re communicating with another intelligent being. Well your dog is a lot smarter than you think, it just takes a little more sensitivity to tune into our method of communicating.
Okay, so I probably wouldn’t outscore you on an IQ test but then they are a bit biased to be relevant specifically to the human experience. I remember some years before my time when researchers were doing extensive intelligence testing on Chimpanzees and the chimp scored wrong on the question; What would you use when it’s raining? A: A loaf of bread. B. An umbrella. C. A potato. D. A tree. The chimp chose tree and got it wrong because a human would obviously use an umbrella. Of course, tree was exactly the right response for a chimp. My point is that often folks fail to pick up on how smart we really are because our thoughts are not those of humans but when you take the effort to look into it, there’s actually quite a lot going on inside our little doggy heads. And lately, researchers have been doing quite a lot of looking into it and even those that set our to disprove the notion of dogs possessing anything beyond the mentality of a dumb beast are shaking their heads in wonderment. The following video link: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/secret-life-dog/ highlights some of this research and some of it will amaze you. Some of it like the “left shift gaze” surprised even me and I’m a dog. This is really just the tip of the iceberg, serious research is still pretty much in its early stages. Anyway, the video is free, commercial-free and devoid of canned laughter, enjoy!
Before I launch into the second video, I feel obligated to provide a warning. Kids, please get your mom and/or dad to help you to decide whether or not to continue with the last part of this post. The language in this next video is fairly graphic but, in reality, probably no worse than what you hear in school every day. The subject matter and content, however, is the stuff nightmares are made of. What’s really disturbing is that it’s not made up. Most of it was filmed under cover and was really happening when it was filmed and, I’m sure, is still happening now. If you do intend to watch it, I would highly recommend watching with your parents, they can help you to process the emotion that it, undoubtedly, will generate. It would also be beneficial to watch it with your dog as well. She won’t make it any easier to digest but she hates being left out. I’m a dog, I know these things.
By way of a preface, this film is all about how humans, as a species, treat animals, both pet and beast, the world over. Every day. Now dad gets really aggravated when people call him a “bunny hugger” or animal rights (as opposed to welfare) activist. I thought he set out his thoughts and those of the other founders quite explicitly in the “Philosophy and Vision” statement on our website, differentiating between wild animals, domestic beasts and pets. He’s been a hunter and fisherman all of his life and although he’s never been one to treat animals cruelly or take a life callously, he’s not willing to extend voting rights to sheep and crocodiles either. Anyway, he said he initially thought this video was going to turn out to be one of those PETA type affairs because it seemed to start out in that manner but said to give it a few minutes and see it through to the end. It is painful to watch, all the more so because it’s real and uncut and this stuff happens everyday everywhere. Watching it won’t relegate you immediately to the bunny hugger camp but I guarantee it will provoke some serious thought and introspection on your part, enough to make it worth the pain of watching, I promise. Here’s the link: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/earthlings/ Kids, remember to do what I asked you to do first please.
Yours Drooly
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