Dogs Define Home

Are our dogs really "ours"? One of the possessions our houses contain? Or do they actually define the space we call home?

"Mine", directed by Geralyn Pezanoski, aired on PBS the other day. Pezanoski told Independent Lens about her time in New Orleans filming the animal rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina, where custody battles were arising over other 'Katrina pets'....

One Katrina survivor described his dog as "the only thing I have left." His dog was not a "thing" to him, of course, but he had nothing left of his life and home before the storm, and the restoration of his dog would in turn restore some kind of continuity....

Is it Behavior or Genetics?

Epigenetics. Check it out sometime.

When scientists in the field of epigenetics observed rat mommas that were nurturing, that licked their babies, in comparison with those that took a paw-off approach and did not, they noted the following:

The unlicked babies had higher blood pressure. Their bodies were flooded with more of the stress hormones that actively promote heart disease, obesity and diabetes. When the unlicked babies were later placed with licking moms, and compared with those that stayed unlicked, they grew up to have far less health problems. Through nurturing behavior, the moms sculpted the genome of their babies.

In turn, there is some evidence that "Genetic Memory" does indeed exist in some form. That our ancestors' life experiences impacts our health, has been proven incontrovertibly. For instance, if one's great-great-grandparent experienced the Irish potato famine, generations later this will impact how one processes food, whether one is overweight, and whether one can or cannot withstand fasting.

What your grandmother was exposed to gets passed down to you – stress, smoking, pesticides. We have a responsibility for shaping our epigenome and passing it down to our kids - preferably improved!

The exciting thing to think about is that: We can change. So can our dogs and cats. And if we change, they certainly will too.

Now, let's get them out in the open air to walk, maybe even play!

"Owning" A Beast

Cats are like doorways,
the doorways they curl around,
because they exist on the edges,
between realities, this world and that,
civilized and beast.

They join us here for dinner,
while, with full bellies,
they nevertheless rip apart a mouse
for play.

They join us in our world, giving us the impression
they belong to it
and leaving suddenly to remind us
they do not.

When we try to coerce
their 'belonging' (or if they even sense we do)
if we forget, assume they are civilized,
their claws lash and eyes flash
in an instant to remind us -
they are certainly, indignantly, not,
not at all civilized.

How ridiculous. How perfectly preposterous.
Humans, such fools.


(Copyright, Refcah Manski 2009)