The dog day

So, late last week, we moved into a new house in a new neighborhood and so far, Bagel the dog is beyond in love with her new (bigger and less landscaped) back yard. Since the house didn't yet have a dog door into said back yard, Mike and I went to the hardware store to get the necessary door along with other just-moved-in items like paint and potting soil. Because we have a great dog and are eternally trusting optimists regarding human character, we simply left the back door open so Bagel could come and go as she pleased.

As I was getting out of the car upon our return home, I heard Mike say, "There's a dog in here. There's a dog in the house other than Bagel . . . " Huh? Note, Bagel does not particularly like other dogs, so while my first reaction was amused surprise, my second was one of minor concern (were they getting along? was Bagel ok?). We walked into the house's front room to a happy, tail-wagging Bagel and a nervous, barking heeler/pit mix who was backing his way through the house toward the back yard. Because he had a collar with tags, we assumed he was just nervous/scared at having maybe gotten lost and somehow landing in our yard/house. But after spending about a half hour trying to coax the very wary dog with treats, we were never able to grab his collar to get the necessary information to call his parents. So, we called the humane society (nobody had reported a dog like him missing) and decided to try one last ditch effort at catching him before having them come pick him up. This last ditch effort was to somehow get a leash around his neck, so we again coaxed him with treats, dropping one in the middle of the leash's circle, and when he went to eat it, Mike tried to slip the leash on him. This failed miserably and the dog simply backed up, glowered disdainfully at us, walked to the back of the yard, and ably climbed the chain-link fence to let himself out. This dog was clearly a pro, and he made it clear that he would rather have his freedom than food or treats or praise. Bagel, meanwhile, wiggled and nudged the treat bag at my hip, and licked my hand, making her own preferences known - she loves having a home with her humans and she was pleased that other dog had left. For me, however, the dog's departure was upsetting for a couple of reasons. First, struck by his wariness of people, I worried the dog would return (or be returned) to his own less-than-loving humans. Second, despite my own cerebral questioning of the way we tend to keep dogs (and, arguably, ourselves) leashed, fenced, etc., I found the idea of this dog as lost or homeless unsettling as well.

Lately, Mike has been pointing out that the very idea of having this little (50lb) animal live with us is really kind of strange. But, it seems that what is unusual about it is less that we share a life with her and more that she helps herself to the bed/love seat/couch/papasan chair, etc. She also eats pretty much whatever we will give her - appropriate veggies and fruits included - and would rather hang out with us than other dogs or non-human animals in general. Perhaps the strangest, especially given her affinity for camping, backpacking, hiking and the like, is that she simply does not like to sleep outside. When it's bed-time, she wants to be in a bed, in a car/house/camper/tent. When we go on climbing trips, she does not spend evenings curled up beside us by the fire; at home, when we are up late, she grumpily makes her way to our bedroom on her own. So, perhaps, what seems odd on the surface is that we seem to have a dog who has adapted quite well to the trappings of human luxury.

But, is her attachment to these things really so strange? After all, at 32 I might be hesitant to spend a spontaneous night wrapped in a stray blanket on a beach though I was happy to do so nearly a decade ago in Morocco. Mike and I also transitioned recently from spending our climbing trip nights sleeping in the back of his truck to spending them in a camper (a slip-in, but a camper nonetheless). As I trepidatiously leave my youth and veer toward middle age, I have come to appreciate comforts, and as a species, humans have done the same, becoming increasingly sedentary and dependent on things that facilitate . . . (eating, commuting, communicating, etc.). All of these markers of "culture" have come, in turn, to serve as symbols of our humanity, as ways that we differ from or control nature, including animals.

Anthropologists have spent the last century plus studying what it means to be human, and this has meant first and foremost constructing a category of "human" that is delimited by factors beyond biology, factors such as language and culture. Yet, from an anthropological perspective, the dog (perhaps the animal with whom humans seem to have most closely evolved) becomes a problematic because it challenges our presumed relationship with nature in two ways. Our society's concern about and fear of/for the independent wanderers and "stray" dogs like the one found in my back yard this afternoon may reflect a fear that culture really cannot contain nature. After all, the very premise of modern American society is based on this idea - some striking individual and community-level exceptions aside, we have not shown ourselves to be a culture that seeks or even recognizes an interdependent relationship with nature. On the other hand, our view of Bagel's behavior as "strange" could represent a concern that dogs and humans are less inherently distinct than we would like to believe. Both of these examples blur the lines and presumed relationship between culture and nature, human and non-human. In doing this, they also illuminate the ways we define ourselves.