Anthropomorphism and Empathy

Better steer clear of her, you left-wing ideologues and right-wing religious types!

Taking into account the fact that Namit has introduced me as a Dragon Lady to be feared, I will inaugurate my blogging efforts at Shunya's Notes with a kinder gentler post.

As I say on my page, I am an ardent animal lover. No, not one of the kooky, irrational types who would let children starve while they pamper their pets - are there really many people like that?  ( But I must admit that when I watch epic war movies or westerns, the twinge of sadness I feel seeing a horse die on the battle field, is a bit more acute than the one I feel for its slain human rider.) I also believe that wanton cruelty towards animals should be punishable by serious jail time and fines. That said, I do not write about animals very often. Some time ago, when the memory of having lost a greatly loved pet was still fresh in my mind, I came across an extraordinarily moving essay in Newsweek by a man who had to put his beloved Doberman to sleep because it had become a threat to the safety of his family. The following thoughts had crossed my mind at that time.

For animal lovers, the joy of living with a companion animal is tempered by the knowledge that our pets most likely will die before us. We also know when we bring animals into our lives that some day we ourselves may be the instrument of their death - when disease, old age or some other consideration will compel us to euthanize them. Knowing this does not make the decision of putting a pet to sleep any easier ... ever.

While most pets are euthanized because of disease or debilitation, dogs sometimes are put to sleep because they become a danger to us even when they are young and healthy. Dogs of aggressive breeds like Doberman, Rottweiler and less often German Shepherds, sometimes imperceptively cross the line between frisky, exuberant and playful .... to dangerous. The pet owner is often slow to recognize the transformation because the dog can remain docile and obedient to one human in the household whom it regards as the alpha animal. Jonathan Cooperman's dog was one such tragic case.  Jack, whom Cooperman called "My Boy" had to be euthanized at the age of four, in the prime of his healthy life when it became clear that he had become a potential threat to his human companions.

"Sometimes there are no words--just a look. Upon my command, my Doberman, Jack, sat obediently in the vet's examining room. Four years old and in his prime, with 115 pounds of strapping muscle, he was at once impressive and intimidating. He sat between the vet and me, wagging his tail.

When I gave him the instruction "paw," he offered that big foot to the vet, who placed a tourniquet on his leg. The medicine was drawn into the syringe and pushed into Jack's vein. Two seconds elapsed, and it was during this extraordinarily brief space of time that Jack gave me that look, one I'd never seen before. I couldn't turn away. Then all that bulk went lifeless, and he was gone.

There were no words. There was no quote that I could take home and put in a diary. There was just that look.

Earlier that morning, Jack had jumped onto the bed (something he was not allowed to do) and attacked my wife, Tracy. He'd given no warning. Even as an experienced Doberman owner, I was amazed by his lightning speed as he bit Tracy three times. I rushed her, shaken and bloody, to the hospital, and it was later that day that Jack and I ended up at the vet's office.

.....We forge special bonds with our pets, and my relationship with Jack was no exception. I called him "my boy," having raised him since he was a pup. When I first got Jack, I owned a sports car, and his idea of going for a ride was jumping into the trunk, then crawling Army style half-way through the dropped-down back seat, so that his hindquarters remained in the trunk as we drove around town. My decision to buy a Jeep as my next vehicle was pretty much influenced by imagining Jack as a passenger. He deserved to be transported in style.

Just before Jack and I went to the vet's, I took him for a long walk and one of our car rides. We played Frisbee and I let him chase squirrels in the park. I wanted his last moments to be normal--and fun. Two hours later he was gone.

So what was Jack trying to convey with that unforgettable look he gave me in the last seconds of his life? Hard to say. Like most pets, he had an assortment of expressions and sounds that spoke loud and clear to me: a quick bark meant he had to go out; pushing his bowl across the floor meant "feed me"; wide paws and a low stance meant "play with me," and my favorite--jumping six feet in the air while banging all four paws against the sliding glass door--meant "I want to come in."

But that last look was something altogether different, and like most people who have been left with a hole in their lives, I find myself filling in the words that were never said. I'd like to believe Jack was saying, "It's OK. I had a good time."

All of us who have gone through the heart wrenching experience of putting a beloved animal to sleep, have wished that we could have fathomed what went through the mind of our pet at the moment before the lethal injection was administered - to know whether they understood.  I know that this will be dismissed by many as unnecessary sentimentality of projecting "human" feelings on to animals. But the very essence of our empathy is to be able to humanize an event and a relationship. How else do we bond with our animals?

Comments

[Soori Johnston]

Heart wrenching. According to a close friend of mine who is highly spiritual, pets come into our lives due to some pevious Karma. We owed them something in a prior life and have to pay our dues back to them. According to him ,every life that is in our present life is entwined with us due to our previous Karma, either we owe them or they owe us. Having had a Hindu upbringing I tend to agree with him. I have a female doberman (Jaquie), She was initially given to me by my hubby as a companion when my kids started kindergarten, 10 years ago. she slowly became my son's dog. I am Mom, she obeys me etc. but my son is her soulmate. She is a lamb, and loved by everyone who meets her, but she will kill for my son. I can't fault her for that, that is her job, she is his protector and she will defend him to death. However, if she did attack and hurt someone for no reason I would also have to euthanize her. At that point humans take precedence to animals. Getting back to Kharma, and "My Boy" I suppose the dues were paid in 4 short years and it was Jacks time to leave. Dogs have a way of looking at you, they seem to look right into your soul. Jaqui has an unwavering look that she gives me when she knows I am sad or upset, almost saying I know what you are feeling, talk to me (most times I do talk to her as I would to another person}. Jack probably felt the anguish Jonathan was going through and was trying to console him. I hope this gives some consolation to us pet owners that have to put their pets to sleep or have the pet die suddenly.

[Usha]

One thing that struck me about this story is that the dog, Jack, sat between his master and his vet, wagging his tail, just before he was given the lethal dose of poison. Most of the dogs I've been close to would have sensed something was up. I don't believe that dogs are aware of their own mortality, but they are certainly able to read their people well enough to know that this is not a happy or good situation. My own dog would have been shivering and cowering between my knees in the same circumstance. (Fortunately, we were spared ever having to make such a difficult decision with any of our pets.)

But then, like with people, dogs also vary widely in their intelligence, sensitivity, and ability to empathize.

[Sujatha]

You made a good point about how deeply pet owners take their pets behavior and well-being to heart, to the point of anthropomorphizing them, as part of the buildup of empathy. It's interesting that a 'voiceless' animal can induce such powerful feelings of empathy even in those humans not particularly well-disposed towards others of their own species.

Just as interspecies bonds in the animal world (dog caring for tiger cubs, cat caring for chicks etc., usually in improbably cutesy Youtube videos) are strange,freaks of nature as we like to think, interspecies interaction has nevertheless been raised to an art form by humans domesticating various forms of wildlife and making them into pets. Of course, some species think it's the other way round.

"The Parrot who owns me" by Joanna Berger is a classic example, where the author, an ornithologist of some repute, details her relationship with an African parrot who behaves as though she is its preferred mate and grew extremely jealous of her SO, to the point of attacking him whenever the bird ( a male) saw him. Perhaps something similar happened in the bonding of Jack with his owner, so that he perceived his owner's wife as a threat of some kind and attacked her.