Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Man’s Best Friend is Still a Hunter

In looking at ourselves, our pets seem to take on our personality or we see it in our pets. It is often said people seem to look like their pets.

Our pets are an important part of our lives. They bring us comfort, companionship and become a part of the family. We have made the hunting dog a house pet; we have made the working dog a companion. Have our pets really changed or are they still domesticated wild animals?



Let me offer this example of pet behavior that makes me think our pets have not changed either. A good friend of mine who has two very large dogs pointed out this behavior to me. She is a student of her dogs and their behavior. As soon as I understood her theory I realized I had also experienced this form of dog behavior.
 


We have all purchased a squeaky toy for our pets. They come in all sizes and shapes. Some of them are shaped like mice for our cats; others are shaped like small animals for our dogs. The one thing they all have in common is the squeaky sound they made when squeezed. They all have this little plastic noisemaker which is the first thing to break while our pets are playing with them. I had never stopped to consider the reason why toy makers put this little squeaky deal in their toys until my friend shared her experience.


We had a small dog-named Trixie as a house pet; she had the hart of a lion. She weighted under 20 pounds and was a great little dog. Her whole world was our house and backyard. One day she came up to the back door with a small baby rabbit in her mouth. As it turns out a wild mother rabbit had a litter of babies in our back year. She had not realized that she was sharing the yard with our feisty little Trixie.



We found the bunny nest and brought one of them into the house to feed and care for it since the mother rabbit was not taking care of it. I was up in the middle of the night feeding this cute little creature with an eyedropper. This little baby rabbit had won our harts.



Then tragedy struck, I was up stairs when I heard this high pitched squeaking sound coming from our family room. We all ran downstairs only to discover our little dog had gotten into the box with the baby rabbit and was killing the little guy. Rabbits in the wild never make a sound but when injured make a loud squeaking sound, one that I will never forget. To end the story the little baby rabbit died and our dog seemed to get a real charge out of doing her “job” of killing this little creature. What struck me and will always remain with me was the sound. It was a perfect match for the sound that pet toys make and I came to realize why our pets love the sound. They have been killing other smaller animals for thousands of years and for dogs, which are predators, it is the sound of the kill.



So next time your pet attacks their squeeze toy you know why it’s such an appealing sound, the sound of a successful hunt and kill. 



Animal behavior like our behavior never seems to change.