My wife grew up on a farm. They had chickens and cows. Cows to milk. Cows to eat.
The rule on the farm was: Do not give names to the animals. Inevitably they wind up on the dinner table.
Thanks to Disney, westerners think every animal with a name is inevitably a living soul.
You don't eat Buddy the pig or Helen the chicken.
My wife as a child gave all the animals names. When they ate the
steaks they thanked the steer for its life and flesh that nourished
them.
That's the way things were because it was that way. The native peoples of North America thanked the souls of the animals they killed for food and clothing. They believed the elk and buffalo and deer and rabbits had spirits and that they had a right to this planet as all humans do. They saw the body as a conveyance for an etherial energy that gave way to awareness. This planet, this existence was not the beginning and end of everything. We are all passing through here.
We give names to dogs and cats. In the west we don't eat them. They eat the cows with us. We see our pets as having souls and some even an afterlife.
Meanwhile, we never wonder the name of the animal ground up in our Big Mac. We're sure it was never given a name.
We hope that's true. Some of us pray for that.
--
I have had dogs for most of my life. It didn't start out as a
conscious choice. Over time it became part of the way I defined my
life. I grew up on the east coast of the United States. Spent most of
my adult life in California. Became an engineer and worked as one for
40 years.
When it's convenient I call myself a New Jerseyan. Or a Californian. Or an Engineer.
Also, a dog person.
I like living in a house with dogs. Dogs are my nameable animal of choice.
When a dog looks at me I see a sentient being in his eyes. I see something flesh and blood that has a soul.
I see traveler experiencing life with me.
Trust me, I know the definition of the verb "anthropomorphize." This is not that.
--
Canines have lived and worked with humans for, pretty much, ever. There are paintings and carvings from ancient Rome, Egypt, Persia, and others that depict humans hunting with dogs. We have lived symbiotically on this planet for as long as humans have been recording their existence on cave walls.
--
Unless you have an African parrot or a sea turtle as a pet - you will outlive them.
This is the thing about pets. They don't live as long as
humans. People on farms know that they are destined to see all the
animals die. This is a way of human life that non-farm people only
experience through having pets. Granted - omnivorous humans are
surrounded by death we never see. Grocery stores are full of death. It
just happens elsewhere.
Our animals are much closer to the situation than we are. Far as
we can tell, our pets are much more zen than us westerners will ever
be. No doubt their life experiences allow them to anticipate problems
or rewards - but generally they live in the moment.
When they die, we experience that loss and learn to move on.
There is an emotion that a pet can create in its owner - and that
is the projection of our love for a specific animal onto all animals.
If our dog apparently loves us, or at least appreciates that we're the
source of food, then could a cow do the same? Is it just that cows are
large and awkward and don't fit well in the living room that we don't
enjoy their company as pets? Amid the explosion of media on the
internet are endless videos of humans befriending and improving the
lives of all sorts of animals.
This onslaught of video didn't exist when I was younger. I ate
my Double Whopper with Cheese and washed it down with coke sucked
through a straw. I never for the slightest instant thought of the
animals who were slaughtered. There was a natural order to things and
as an apex predator I accepted my place in the food chain.
Now, suffering the ravages of age and disease, I don't feel that way, so much, anymore.
When I think of the animals on this planet I see them all as my dogs.
If I see the spark of a soul in my beloved dogs, why do I not see it in
other living creatures? Could it be we're all ethereal beings who
through the machinations of the universe got trapped in the same
physical existence? Should I become a vegetarian? Gee. I gotta admit, I
often crave a good bacon double cheeseburger. And so do my dogs. If
we were a pack, we'd be hunting down elk and deer and splitting the
spoils. And it seems to be the way of this world that one needs to kill
other things to survive, even if its only mowing down plants.
I treat my dogs like weird mutated human family members. But I know
they are animals. There is no delusion. They are not my "fur babies."
They are pets. But they are a part of my life. They are not children.
My dogs like to hunt things. They hunt gophers and chipmunks around here.
I have witnessed each of my dogs cornering and then absolutely
mutilating a vole of some sort, that was fighting mightily for its
life. We're not talking little mice. These are creatures the size of
small cats. The dog instinctively grabs the rodent by the head and shakes it, breaking its neck. They were not taught this. It's programming from nature. It's programming via millions of years.
I did not stop my dogs from killing the gophers. It's the way of the
animal kingdom. They are very proud of what they can do. They get
pretty cranky with me when I toss the dead gopher body into the empty
lot - because I don't want them eating gophers and winding up with
plague or worms. My tossing the rodent body goes against the natural order of things. My dogs know this instinctively the way they learned to kill. They look at me as if I'm criminally insane. They have just performed their purpose, and I erased their work. I must be defective in their eyes.
My pets are hunters. That's what dogs and cats are. It was like
that when I got here. It will be this way after I'm gone 100 years.
--
I have had many dogs over the decades. I outlived them all. They got old. Their bodies began to fail. They eventually need help standing on a slippery hardwood floor. They need help climbing stairs or getting into a car.
They bear their pain silently. With apparent nobility that has a purpose. In the wild injured creatures are culled from the pack, either by predators or simply by being rejected by the family. It's natures programming. Nature favors the greater good over the individual.
Only us humans, and perhaps elephants, think differently.
Which is why I still exist to write these words to you, dear friend.
--
Humans get old. It happens when you're not paying attention.
Things stop being magic. We figure out the microwave oven isn't cooking food via wizard wands and bibbidy-bobbity-boo. We learn that fire has different temperatures and that the images on screens were made by people and computers.
There's an old adage about a frog and a pot of boiling water. It goes like this: If you try to toss a frog into a boiling pot of water, it jumps away quickly and goes on with its froggy life.
But: if you put a frog in a pot of cool water, it sits there quietly. And if you slowly heat the pot the frog stays, slowly being boiled. It doesn't notice death that comes slowly.
Far as I have learned in my decades on this planet we're all frogs in that cool pot of water perched above a fire we don't see below.
One day after a good mountain bike ride, the knees hurt a little too much for aspirin to soothe. It keeps happening. Since when did I have knee problems?
One day you get your eyes checked and they tell you there are cataracts, but nothing to worry about. Until you think you need new glasses. And glasses don't help. You can't see at night anymore, where you're certain you could not so long ago. Were you mistaken?
Things degrade slowly. The gears get caked in dust. The flesh rusts. Modern medicine and psychology fix what they can.
Yet there's no escaping.
The water will boil someday.
---
I always wondered why we had this stereotype of old people being cranky. Now I know. Because it's true.
While sitting quietly you find yourself getting angry in the middle of the day. No reason.
Or is there?
Oh yeah. Everything hurts. Hurt is buried. Buried pain comes out as anger.
I remember my doctor asking: "Any pains?"
I said, "How long do you have?"
He smiled. We were done. That's the way it goes.
--
Now my joints hurt. I slip on the hardwood floors. My joints complain when I try to fold myself into the car. My reaction time has gone to hell. My eyesight is crummy. I'm partially deaf. It's hard to hold a consistent concept in my mind.
I have seen this happen to my dogs. But they endured the aging process with a grace I struggle to mimic. They never stopped relying on my partnership while they tried to remain a valued member of the pack.
Their behavior is absolute. It's programmed over millions of years of evolution. It seems correct. It seems blessed. How can I follow that example?
--
I get sentimental. I am a meat creature. I have a name.
I lose words when I try to speak. The joy and misery of decades piles up into waves of uncontrollable tears. It affects even the most stoic of us. Even though we can't remember the name of the person we just met, every dawn, every snowflake, every car horn in the distance triggers an explosion of distant memory.
Playground fights. Children born. That time I rear-ended someone with my brand new car. A first kiss. The plate they put on my collar bone after I took a header. The presentation I gave at work that saved the division. The Father's day gift my first grader made out of toilet paper cores and construction paper. The Mother's Day petunia I brought home from Kindergarten for my mom. The presentation I made at work when I was called to account for the failure of my team.
History becomes an uncontrollable flow.
Every mistake I committed rendered stark by the brilliant arc lamp of the mind. Every joyful moment in scintillating glory of what was and will never be again.
The memories are stronger than reality at times. I wonder if I whimper and try to run in my sleep.
In my dreams I'm gliding down hills on my mountain bike. I'm exploring the antarctic. I'm celebrating my child's birthday. Wrapping Christmas gifts.
My dogs wake me up in the morning. They boop me with their noses, and paw at me to get me out of bed.
They remind me that someday I'll be gone. But now I'm here.
There are still gophers out there who need to be hunted. There are balls to be thrown and caught. There are walks to be taken.
And it's the way it is.
Get up. Fight the joint pain. Smile and rejoice. The pack still needs me.
There will be breakfast.
--
I see the being in my dog's body. There is a soul in there as much as there's a soul in me.
I don't know what the soul is. It's entirely likely the human perception of a soul is simply something that allows us meat creatures to pass our internal Turing test.
Maybe there's nothing to this existence at all. I've gone through years of believing that as my primary religion.
Now I know.
All this time, the dogs were teaching me this. There is value in simply being. Simply walking this Earth and doing what needs to be done. Keeping the pack healthy. Raising the young. Bringing home an elk for dinner.
If I had a tail I would wag it until the moment of my death.
I have seen my dog do that.
Perhaps the greatest lesson I have ever been taught.