If This Isn’t Dog Love, What Is?

Posted on January 3, 2013 by zoeweil
Image copyright Edwin Barkdoll.

Recently my husband, Edwin, and I took our three dogs, Ruby, Elsie, and Hershel, for a walk along a beautiful stream near our home in Maine. At the end of the trail we discovered a new path that crossed the water and continued along the other side. We decided to come back on this new trail, but when the trail re-crossed the stream, the rocks that provided the stepping stones were icy and slick, and I didn’t want to risk slipping into the water. But Edwin, Ruby, and Hershel had no problem, and they crossed over.

Elsie – whom we think has border collie in her – wasn’t happy at all. She stayed with me but was constantly looking for a good place for us to cross, too. She’d look at me, start crossing, and if I didn’t follow, she’d return to me. At one point she must have thought she’d found the perfect spot for both of us, so she crossed; but when I couldn’t make it and continued on the other side of the stream, she became distraught. She cried out repeatedly with her high-pitched yelps, so agitated and upset, and finally returned to me, even though it meant leaving the pack and recrossing the stream. I never did make it across the stream, so Elsie just stayed by my side until we found our way back to the car from the other side and met up with everyone else. She was clearly happy when we were all back together.

I’ve been reflecting on Elsie’s behavior. If she does have border collie in her as we suspect, then generations of breeding have gone into her passion for keeping a “herd” together. But whether this is behavior bred into her or not, her emotions are real and deeply felt. She cannot stand to have us apart. But neither will she leave my side. She is the most loving, devoted dog. She hugs me. Literally. And when she does, she throws her head back in bliss and abandon (see photo). If this isn’t love, what is?

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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Non-human and Human Animals: More Similarities Than Differences

Posted on November 11, 2011 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of braindamaged217
via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from Non-human and Human Animals: More Similarities Than Differences:

“It’s common to read books about issues related to human psychology, sociology, behavior and history and find references to and comments about the essential differences between humans and other animals (more often referred to as just “animals”). It’s as if in every era and from every author, a new fundamental difference must be named. I generally find these irritating.

I realize that humans are, in a very obvious way, quite different from all other species currently residing on Earth (but imagine if we still shared this planet with Neandertals!). Our built world is a far cry from a termite nest. Our ability to adapt to every clime by creating and wearing clothes, building elaborate structures, and harnessing energy sources for warmth and light certainly stands out. The complexity of our languages and our ability to use representational symbols to convey information through writing (and now computing) doesn’t have a counterpart among other species; and yet, these lie along a spectrum, and what essential quality do humans really have that does not lie on a continuum with other species?”

For a humane world,Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Prepare to Be Amazed By the Humble Starling

Posted on March 4, 2011 by zoeweil

I grew up in Manhattan where I was exposed to few species of birds, primarily just sparrows and pigeons. Pigeons were commonly referred to as rats with wings, but I thought they were lovely, and I enjoyed watching the usually elderly people (described as eccentric and generally avoided) feeding them in the park. The pigeons surrounded their benefactors, cooing and alighting on their shoulders. So while pigeons were largely despised, there were those of us who loved them.

I remember the first time I saw a European starling. I was startled by such a gorgeous bird, with a bright yellow beak and lavender, turquoise, and green iridescent feathers shining amidst their otherwise speckled feathers. I asked the person with me what kind of bird was that!? She was shocked that I didn’t know what a starling was. Introduced into the U.S. in the late 1800s, they are now considered an invasive species that competes with native birds and ruins crops. I understand that problem, but the consequence of being branded as a pest can be pretty awful for individual animals who, through no fault of their own, are poisoned and trapped in droves.

I believe it’s important to appreciate each species with whom we share this planet – even if, through our unwise actions, we’ve introduced them into places they didn’t naturally arise. It’s important, because when we vilify another species, whether passenger pigeon (now extinct because of the genocide we perpetrated upon them), or mosquitoes (now resistant to more and more pesticides), we often cause more harm than good. We have a habit of making choices that are both unwise initially, and unwise in response.

I don’t have an answer to how to solve the problems caused by introduced species, but in the case of the European starling, it’s worth pausing to marvel at these incredible birds. Then perhaps we can attempt to generate solutions that are best for all: humans, the environment, and other species.

Prepare to be amazed:

For a healthy and humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Image courtesy of Rachel Davies via Creative Commons.

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Rubie, Elsie, and the Stick

Posted on September 20, 2010 by zoeweil

Most days, I walk my dogs, Ruby and Elsie, down to the ocean. Invariably, Elsie finds a stick to bring home, although stick is really a misnomer. Little Elsie is more likely to carry home a small tree than a stick, and Ruby and I anxiously check our backs because Elsie tears along the path with the stick, banging it into us at high speed if we’re not quick enough to scoot off the path and into the woods. Ruby has taken to jumping aside long before Elsie can ram that stick into her. This morning, I was not so quick. Elsie came up so suddenly that the stick whacked the back of my legs. I sternly said “No, Elsie,” and she looked chagrined. She begin running through the woods with it and avoiding me, but because it’s hard to carry a tree in your mouth through the woods, she changed the angle, carrying it to the side so that the length of the tree was parallel to her body rather than perpendicular to it. What a smart girl, I thought. Yet, why shouldn’t she be smart? Why should I be at all surprised that she’d modify her behavior at my command? She does it all the time.

Although Elsie doesn’t speak English, she has learned far more “human” than I have learned “dog” in our amazing cross-species relationship. She adjusts to me daily, reading my voice, my posture, my movements, my moods, my desires, and tweaking her own behavior to meet both my and her own needs. I have done little to adjust to her, expecting that she will be the one to change – to go to the bathroom only when I let her out and where I expect her to go, to eat only when I provide food and not to eat or chew on the various things in the house that are off-limits (like the CDs and the furniture), to lick only as much as I am comfortable with and no more, to get off the bed on command but know that she is generally welcome to sleep there as long as she doesn’t take “my” space, to “obey” sit, stay, come, lie down, high five, hug, leave it and a few other choice commands, not to mention learning to carry her sticks a new way through an obstacle course of woods rather than a wide open path. She continues to learn how to better suit me while I blithely carry on with no concerted effort to speak her language or follow her “rules.”

Yet I know that her life is an utter joy largely because of the home and life we’ve created for her and Ruby and Griffin (too old now to run to the ocean). I’m happy she’s willing to always adjust so that the back of my legs won’t be whacked by her stick obsession.

Zoe Weil
Author of So, You Love Animals: An Action-Packed, Fun-Filled Book to Help Kids Help Animals, Moonbeam Gold Medal winner for juvenile fiction, Claude and Medea: The Hellburn Dogs and Most Good, Least Harm

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Finding Joy in My Dog Elsie

Posted on August 20, 2010 by zoeweil

I’ve shared my home with seven dogs in my life, and none have had quite as much “personality” as Elsie, who joined our family one year ago. When my husband, Edwin, brought Elsie home from the veterinary clinic where he works, I agreed to a trial weekend. We already had three dogs, one of whom was old and dying from cancer, and the last thing our household needed was a 6-month-old, non-housebroken dog. Besides, Edwin wasn’t supposed to have been at work that day, as we had been planning a camping trip that weekend. But a hurricane dashed those plans, and Edwin forgot something at work and so went into the clinic on a Saturday morning just as Elsie, who’d come in as a stray 10 days earlier, was about to be picked up by a local shelter.

When Elsie arrived in our house she walked in fairly confidently, despite the fact that the house was already full of dogs, two of whom were much bigger than she. In one swift move, she plopped down on the floor, as if signaling her intention to stay. And stay she has, taking her place in our family and my heart as the funniest, most engaging, most loving dog I’ve ever known. Elsie makes eye contact like nobody’s business, but not aggressively. When Elsie looks at you it’s as if she’s trying to pour out her overflowing, enthusiastic heart. I have never felt so adored in all my life as I do by Elsie.

This summer has been a joy for Elsie. If she has tired out our 7-year-old dog, Ruby, and if none of us are willing to play stick, Elsie will simply play stick by herself. She has collected a couple of very large sticks (more like branches), and she keeps them in a specific place by the kiwi arbor. When she wants to play with them she picks one up and runs around with it, and then throws it up in the air and catches it, and then chews it for awhile, leaving it by the arbor for next time. And when she gets hot from such activity, she trots down to the pond and goes for a swim.

Elsie is so attentive that as soon as I awake in the morning, even before I open my eyes, she jumps on the bed (or, if she’s already on the bed, slinks up it), to greet me. She’s learned not to paw me or lick me on my face (I don’t like either of these behaviors), but to give a teeny lick on my hand and rest her head on my body to say good morning. And then I pet her, and we are both so happy.

It’s hard to describe the joy that Elsie brings me. The best way I have of understanding it is by observing her. She is joyous in a way I can only imagine, and lucky for me, I experience a measure of it in her presence.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Claude and Medea: The Hellburn Dogs, and So, You Love Animals: An Action-Packed, Fun-Filled Book to Help Kids Help Animals

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Seven Ducklings and the Peace of Wild Things

Posted on May 26, 2010 by zoeweil

This morning as I walked by our pond, I saw a Mallard with her seven newly hatched ducklings. I kept my dogs under control as we walked past the pond while the mother duck quickly gathered the babies to keep them safe from us predators. I was ambivalent about seeing this family of ducks on our pond. I love seeing them, love the fast-swimming, sweet-chirping, fuzzy little ducklings, but I have watched too many be killed at our pond by crows and other wildlife. Ours is not a particularly safe pond for ducklings. Year after year I observe their numbers decline as the days go by. One year, a mother duck lost every single duckling in the space of three days. I wondered about her, whether she was a young mother, inexperienced in protecting her babies, unwise in her choice of ponds. Did she have better luck in succeeding years? How did she cope with her terrible loss?

I often recite this poem, Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things,” to soothe myself when life is particularly challenging.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water,
and I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The line, “I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief” has been both balm and occasional curative for my worried mind, but today I had to wonder. Does this Mallard mother truly live in the present moment? Is she never taxed by forethought of grief? She is a vigilant mother, always attentive and ready to steer her young to safety. Perhaps she does indeed anticipate the terrors that lurk around her, and worry and fret for her children’s lives, as Wendell Berry does. Perhaps it is only our wishful thinking that there is a way to truly live free of such anxiety and fear.

Still, I try to accept what I cannot change and release unhelpful worry. I try to have faith that whatever comes in life I will have the capacity to endure it and maintain some modicum of equanimity and composure and never lose my integrity or courage. And still, I, like Berry, return again and again to what feels like the peace of wild things, whether or not it is truly peaceful for them. And, like Berry, it is in that grace that I, too, find a taste of freedom.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and So, You Love Animals

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