Each year about this time the 8th graders begin studying the Jack London novel “Call of the Wild”. One of the first articles they read is calling this author out as a "Nature Faker." This means giving animals from the wild human characteristics and personifying them. The argument was that animals in the wild thrive on instinct for survival and do not own personality traits, but being a nature buff and a lover of animals, I have to disagree.
Our little Shih Tzu, Chloe, came home with me as a puppy about 8 months before our first grandbaby arrived. She has literally grown up with the now toddlers who run after her and poke her and kiss on her. She also has an older brother who is a 125 pound lab who was five years old by the time this family began to grow.
Chloe thinks she is a lab and as big as he is. She runs behind him in the yard and cocks her leg like him when she pees after him. She chases balls and squirrels like he does and when the babies come over and grab toys from their basket, she runs over and grabs her own toys from her basket. And in some way of communication she lets them know with no uncertainty which are her toys and which are their toys. Eye contact and a feisty bark is involved to set things straight.
When Liam was just a baby, I was holding him in our breakfast room and just as he dozed off to sleep in my arms, I laid his pacifier on the stool to continue rocking him. Chloe showed up with her favorite toy in her mouth looking back at Liam and at me. She then dropped the toy on my lap next to him, and I thought to myself, "She is giving him her favorite toy." At that moment she snatched his pacifier with her mouth and took off to hide under the bed. This little vixen was offering what she reasoned in her mind as an even trade.
But is that different from the animals in the wild because these house pets have been domesticated. Were they still wolves in the wild would no such personality exist? Animals can just grow a personality because they are around humans? They have no emotions or thoughts surviving in the wild robotically?
We have this unusual breed of Fox Squirrel in our neighborhood that is very different than the typical grey squirrel. They have cute little teddy bear faces with short ears and a white mouth and nose. The boys asked me about them and laughed when I told them they have a lot more personality than the regular squirrels. But they do.
For instance, one day I was walking by this one I see all the time in a neighbor’s yard, and it did what it always does. When I was noticed, it ran onto the lowest branch and got on its hind legs and froze like a statue. This time I stopped and stared at it about six feet away. I took two steps toward him, and he flinched then froze again. I said, "I know you are there. I know you are a squirrel and not a part of that tree." He flinched and went back to freezing. So, I jumped and yelled "Boo!" His arms shot out and if a squirrel could squeal that is what he did and ran up the tree barking and cackling at me. I laughed the rest of the way home.
Did he get into his nest that night and talk to his family about that crazy lady who always walks by jumping up and down like a lunatic? Were the neighbors watching from their windows also talking that night about the crazy lunatic? I have no clue, but from my observations throughout my years, man has not tamed animals to have personalities. We have just tamed them in a way to communicate them to us.
