I BEGAN OBSERVING DOGS BY ACCIDENT. WHILE FRIENDS SPENT SIX MONTHS
INEUROPE, I TOOK CARE OF THEIR HUSKY, MISHA. AN AGREEABLE TWO-YEAR-OLD
SIBERIAN WITH LONG, THIN LEGS AND SHORT, THICK HAIR, MISHA COULD JUMP
MOST FENCES AND TRAVEL FREELY. HE JUMPED OUR FENCE THE DAY I TOOK HIM IN.
AS MISHA VIOLATED THE LEASH LAW IN OUR CITY I WOULD RECEIVE COMPLAINTS
ABOUT HIM, AND WITH THE HELP OF THESE COMPLAINTS I WAS SOON ABLE TO
ESTABLISH THAT HE HAD DEVELOPED A RANGE OF APPROXIMATELY 130 SQUARE
MILES. MUCH LARGER THAN THE RANGES OF HOMELESS DOGS REPORTED IN BALTIMORE
BY THE SCIENTIST ALAN BECK, MISHA'S RANGE MORE CLOSELY RESEMBLED THE 200-
To 500-SQUARE-MILE TERRITORIES ROAMED BY WOLVES. WHAT WAS MISHA
DOING?
Obviously, something unusual. Here was a dog who, despite his
youth, could navigate flawlessly, finding his way to and from all corners
of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, by day and night. Here was a dog
who could evade dangerous traffic and escape the dog officers and
dognappers, who never fell through the ice on the Charles River, who
never touched the poison baits set out for raccoons, who was never mauled
by other dogs. Misha always came back from his journeys feeling fine,
ready for a light meal and a rest before going out again. How did he do
it?
For a while I looked for the answer in journals and books, but I
found nothing: Despite a vast array of publications on dogs, virtually
nobody, neither scientist nor layman, had ever bothered to ask what dogs
do when left to themselves. At first, that science had ignored the
question seemed amazing. But was it really? We tend to study animals for
what they can teach us about ourselves or for facts that we can turn to
our advantage. But dogs have shared our lives for 20,000 years. How then
had we managed to learn so little about them that we could not answer the
simplest question: What do they want?
Our ignorance becomes more blameworthy when we consider that no
animal could be easier to study. Unlike wild animals, dogs are not afraid
of us. To study them we need not invade their habitat or imprison them in
ours--our world is their natural habitat and always was.
Furthermore, because their wild ancestors were not dogs at all but
wolves, dogs have never even existed as a wild species. Hence, curled on
the sofa beside me was a creature of mystery--an agreeable dog with a
life of his own that he had no wish to conceal and that he was managing
with all the competence of a wild animal, not with any help from human
beings but in spite of them.
ONE EVENING HE GOT UP AND STRETCHED, preparatory to voyaging. First
he braced his hind legs and stretched backward, head bowed, rump high, to
pull tight the muscles of his shoulders. Then he raised his head and
dropped his hips to stretch his spine and hind legs, even clenching his
feet into fists so that the stretch went into his toes. Ready at last, he
moved calmly toward the door so that, as usual, I could open it for him.
As our eyes met, I had an inspiration: Misha himself would answer my
questions. Right in front of me, a long-neglected gate to the animal
kingdom seemed waiting to be opened. Misha held the key.
Who could resist the appeal of this notion? No money, no travel, no
training, no special instruments were necessary to probe the mystery--one
needed only a dog, a notebook, and a pencil. I didn't even regret my
total lack of formal training to begin such a project. In fact, I didn't
feel I'd be ignorant for long. I opened the door a crack. Out slipped
Misha, with me right behind him, and thus our project began.
The first question, perhaps the most important, I was never able to
answer. This was the question of Misha's navigational skills. Sometimes
he seemed to travel without the use of landmarks, since once he had
arrived at his destination, he might easily take another route home. Did
he use the stars or the position of the sun? Did he see polarized light?
Did he use odors floating in the air, as fish use the taste of currents
in sea water?
I didn't know, and could learn nothing by watching his sure trot,
his confident demeanor. To probe more deeply would have required an
experiment--blindfolding him, say, and taking him to some distant release
point. But that wasn't the nature of our relationship.
I did learn two things, though, about Misha's navigational ability.
The first was that his skills were probably not innate, or not entirely
so. If they had been, other huskies should have shared them. But I knew
others who could not navigate. One was Misha's wife, Maria. When they
were together, Misha established the route for both of them, and not
easily, because she, young and enthusiastic, would go bounding ahead of
him, often in the wrong direction, requiring him to overtake her. Then,
by jumping at her, he would literally have to knock her in the shoulder
to make her turn.
The second was that although he made his way faultlessly through
the city, his technique didn't necessarily apply in the country,
especially if he hadn't reached the starting point on his own. If I took
the dogs with me when I went to visit relatives, and if the dogs then
went voyaging, Misha wasn't always able to lead Maria back to my
relatives' home. Perhaps he felt less sure of himself in unfamiliar
surroundings. Whatever the reason, if both got lost in the country, they
would use Maria's technique for getting home and wait on someone's
doorstep for me to show up in the car.
Tags:
Alan Beck,
animal,
array,
dog,
fence,
fences,
journeys,
layman,
misha,
poison,
raccoons,
scientist,
six months,
traffic,
wolves
