...AS MY ONE CLIENT puts next month's publication to bed and consumes most of my writing energies in the process. Hence this change-of-pace link, to a scientific story that shows yet again how intelligence is far more universal than most of us (arrogantly modern) humans are willing to believe. My bias is obvious to long-time readers: I love stories like this, available here, because they reinforce my conviction that animals – especially canines, and most especially domestic dogs – do the amazing things they so often do (like save children from drowning) not out of some benighted "instinct" but rather out of genuine perception, caring and logic. From this perspective – a distinctly pagan part of my consciousness repeatedly confirmed by my years in the country and thus something I will never relinquish no matter how many times Christianity denounces it as heretical – I am in absolute agreement with our American Aboriginal forebears: dogs, wolves, bears, cougars, ravens etc. are united with us as kin of the Mother of All Living, and even when it is necessary to shoot animals like cougars or bears in self defense, they are still more our sisters and brothers than ever our spiritually desensitized minds can grasp.
Posted by Loren at January 19, 2005 06:45 PM