I have the great fortune of sharing a living space with a very playful dog named Fulmine. He is small and quite possibly the fastest dog in the world, hence his name, which translates as ‘Lightning’ in Italian.
He likes to play a game with a crushed yellow plastic bottle, the classic one where I throw it and he goes to get it. More often though, the game involves him grabbing the bottle in his mouth, and then getting my attention by jumping up on the backs of my legs. When I turn around to grab the bottle so that I can throw it, he quickly turns and takes a step or two away so that it is out of my reach. As I said, he is extremely fast, both in reflexes and on foot, and there is no chance that I can ever get anywhere close to grabbing the bottle. In fact, my efforts are so pathetic as to be comical, I am sure.
So here’s the question: Why does he offer me the bottle only to snatch it away? He must be aware of the irony in the gesture, hence its capacity to constitute a game. He is only pretending to give me a bottle, and he knows he is pretending because it is more fun that way. If he were an earnest human toddler, or a little puppy, I imagine (he’s about two), he might trot up with the bottle and gently lay it at my feet, which would be adorable, but not ironic, and not playful, at least not in this teasing sense.
There are times when he wants to be vigorously petted, and I am good at that, but I am afraid that he is getting bored with me as a sporting challenger. He even slows his reaction so that the game becomes more of an even match, but even then I disappoint him.
It is easy to read dogs. (Sorry, all of you behaviorialists who say we make too much of canine personalities, you are just dead wrong on this). It must be much harder to read unicellular organisms. Perhaps their ontologies are just too far out of reach for us. But I am convinced that the trajectory of animal studies is putting us on a path that will lead us to greater understanding of nonhuman personalities and personhoods. I have never seen a news item in which it is announced, for example, that, ‘you know what, folks, parrots aren’t as bright as we thought they were’. No, it is always in the other direction, towards greater recognition of the sophistication of nonhuman sensibilities.
He likes to play a game with a crushed yellow plastic bottle, the classic one where I throw it and he goes to get it. More often though, the game involves him grabbing the bottle in his mouth, and then getting my attention by jumping up on the backs of my legs. When I turn around to grab the bottle so that I can throw it, he quickly turns and takes a step or two away so that it is out of my reach. As I said, he is extremely fast, both in reflexes and on foot, and there is no chance that I can ever get anywhere close to grabbing the bottle. In fact, my efforts are so pathetic as to be comical, I am sure.
So here’s the question: Why does he offer me the bottle only to snatch it away? He must be aware of the irony in the gesture, hence its capacity to constitute a game. He is only pretending to give me a bottle, and he knows he is pretending because it is more fun that way. If he were an earnest human toddler, or a little puppy, I imagine (he’s about two), he might trot up with the bottle and gently lay it at my feet, which would be adorable, but not ironic, and not playful, at least not in this teasing sense.
There are times when he wants to be vigorously petted, and I am good at that, but I am afraid that he is getting bored with me as a sporting challenger. He even slows his reaction so that the game becomes more of an even match, but even then I disappoint him.
It is easy to read dogs. (Sorry, all of you behaviorialists who say we make too much of canine personalities, you are just dead wrong on this). It must be much harder to read unicellular organisms. Perhaps their ontologies are just too far out of reach for us. But I am convinced that the trajectory of animal studies is putting us on a path that will lead us to greater understanding of nonhuman personalities and personhoods. I have never seen a news item in which it is announced, for example, that, ‘you know what, folks, parrots aren’t as bright as we thought they were’. No, it is always in the other direction, towards greater recognition of the sophistication of nonhuman sensibilities.
No comments:
Post a Comment