Invading Chickens Bring Reinforcements

Yesterday morning, the chickens from across the fence were back. But this time, they were bolder. And they brought reinforcements.

I could see the chickens from a great distance, and they seemed to have made it quite far into my yard from their initial illegal border crossing.

I could hear the neighbors calling to them from the distance: "Here chick--ee chickee. Here chick-ee chick-ee, chick-ee!" But if I had not herded them toward the fence, they probably would have stayed right there.

 Shortly afterwards, they came right back. I was watching them from my kitchen window, and I thought I saw two dogs run right through the spot where the chickens were crossing and then disappear into my unmown pasture, which right now is more like a wildlife preserve than a pasture.

By the time I approached the chickens, the dogs were nowhere in sight, but they were on my property and not the neighbors'. And this fact seemed to embolden the chickens.

Now the chickens were not running so fast to get away from me. They were strolling at a leisurely pace.

They even paused for a short while by the new apple tree in the orchard. And even when they had crossed over to their own side of the fence, they just stood there and looked at me.

They seemed to be saying to themselves:"Let's wait right here until she leaves. Then we go back in!"

On my stroll back to the house, I was suddenly confronted by the neighbors' dogs, who came out of  my overgrown pasture. One of them was my old friend Cowboy the Neighbor Dog. He is very well behaved. But his young and much bigger friend was much less socialized, and he actually dared to bark at me on my own land, as if I were the one who was trespassing.

When I glanced over at the other fence line, I saw the chickens were still there, on the other side of the fence, watching and waiting for the chance to cross back over. Were the dogs and the chickens from my neighbors' yard acting in concert? Was this a planned invasion?

Dogs and chickens can coexist and even work together. But it's not always the case. When I had chickens who were kept separately from my dogs, the dogs eventually got to them and killed them. Yet where chickens and dogs are allowed to roam free, coexistence does not seem to be such a problem.

Why is that? What can we learn from this about humans and chimpanzees?

And Also the Phone

Yesterday, when Bow was napping after breakfast, the calm and quiet of our world was shattered by an alarm raised by the two dogs, Brownie and Leo, concerning an intruder. Now this was not  the usual barking, like when a squirrel passes over the backyard on a tree branch, and Leo just can't let that go. It was not like the barking when an occasional deer or rabbit get too close to the house. This was serious stuff. This was a real intruder. I got Bow's permission to go out and investigate.

The rays of the rising sun obscured the dog, but there it was, and its presence was infuriating Leo and Brownie. If anyone tells you that property rights are just a human invention, think about how attuned dogs are to the crime of trespass. If you think that dogs don't understand boundaries and property rights, ask yourself why intruders, including dirty cops, always kill the dog first.

I was willing to find out more about this stray dog, but it was too scared to stay. Then when I went back in, I found that Bow had been so upset about this whole thing, he had overturned his potty. After we went through the entire discipline and cleanup routine, I asked Bow why. Why did he act out, when on many other occasions he allowed me to go outside and stay much longer? Was it just because there was a stray dog out there? He answered yes, but then he added. "וגם הטלפון." --"And also the phone."

It turns out that the phone rang while I was out there. Bow could have tolerated a stray dog. He could have tolerated the phone ringing. But having the phone ring and ring while I was out there dealing with a stray dog, that was intolerable!

Turtles Everywhere

On  Wednesday, I ran errands, as it was my day off. Very close to the same place I had met the Eastern Box Turtle about a week earlier, another, less exotic turtle was stranded in the middle of the road. I don't know how they get into these situations, except that they must set out confidently to cross the road, and then a car comes by, and they get scared, and go back into their shell, and then they have no idea when to try again.

I saw the turtle as I was passing by the local school, but I could not stop the car there, so I waited till I got to the next parking lot, which belonged to a church. Then I backtracked on foot quite a distance to where the turtle was still waiting.

I picked it up from behind and brought it over to the side of the street it had been facing.

The sun was very bright and high in the sky and cast gigantic shadows.

Once it was safely on the other side, I stopped to snap a picture, and then I walked back to my car. The turtle did not open up while I was there.

Then that evening I saw a turtle out on the lawn on my own property.

It seemed very familiar. I was sure I had seen it before.

There were markings on the shell that were unmistakable.

At first it would not open up, but after I gave it some distance, it proceeded along its chosen trajectory.

I snapped a few more pictures, then watched it disappear into the pasture.

All of the nature photos I have been taking really came in handy yesterday, for the music video of "I Love Everyone" from The Debt Collector, a musical that composer Daniel Carter and I collaborated on about five years ago. The singer is Erin Royall Carlson.

This song does not represent my philosophy, by the way. It is the world view of Siren the Social Worker, a statist and a fuzzy thinker who believes that everything in nature revolves around her and that she can solve everybody's problems. This is from early on in the musical, and it is Siren's introductory song.  I do not believe we can love everyone equally, nor does it make sense to try. But the nature photos do seem to go well with the song.

Erin Royall Carlson also did a great job on "Steak on a Plate", a campy, sexy song from the third act. When Bow heard her singing, he asked to see the singer, but he was disappointed when there were no images of Erin Royall Carlson belting out the song.

I saw a meme today that represents everything that is wrong with the way people look at love, welfare and helping others. It was a dog with his dish held in his mouth, looking mournfully into the camera. "Would you give up your meal so that your dog can eat?" was the caption.

No. Dogs were not meant to eat a special diet that costs their owners money. Man and dog have always shared their meals -- neither had to give up a meal for the other. Dogs are supposed to eat our leftovers. That's how this symbiotic relationship between Man and Wolf began. It requires no self sacrifice and is beneficial to both.

You might as well ask: Would you give up a meal so that the beneficial bacteria in your gut can have something to eat? No, the bacteria share our food naturally. Society is so confused right now that people have no idea how to coexist peacefully with others in a natural way that benefits all. You're not even allowed to give your leftovers to the poor, because it's not "sanitary"!

Recognizing Propaganda

Last night, after Bow went to sleep,  I took my daughter and her friend to the movies. The movie they chose was Dolphin Tale II. It was a fairly enjoyable marine film, based apparently on some degree of truth, but I could not help but feel that it was also full of propaganda. The plot of the movie in a nutshell is that a handicapped dolphin named Winter, who lost her tail, is in danger of losing her human companions, too, because her dolphin companion has died, and the USDA inspector is threatening to move her to a facility far away, where she can have a new dolphin companion. The requirement for having a dolphin companion cannot be waived, because it is imposed by the government. Luckily, in the end, an orphaned dolphin is found who can keep Winter company, so that she will not be torn away from the humans who love her. The USDA inspector is satisfied, and all is right with the world. (Sorry about the spoiler.)

This is the brave new world of animal rights. In this world, people don't own dolphins, but the USDA apparently does. Hence even if you own a marine aquarium and run it yourself, the government gets to decide what happens to the animals who are there. In order for an uncompanioned dolphin who depends on you to stay in its home, you have to hope, pray and wish that somewhere out there in the ocean a mother dolphin will serendipitously die so that an orphan can be found who can allow you to keep the animal you love.

I could tell that this film was intended to "educate" the public about animal rights because certain key phrases kept being repeated, most notably "she's a wild animal, not a pet." This was even though there were clear emotional bonds between the dolphin Winter and her human companions on whom she depended.  (The story would not have been interesting if there were not.)

The smaller children in the audience were very much into the story, holding their breaths to see whether the older dolphin and the orphan would bond, but they will undoubtedly go home with some of the key phrases that were smuggled into the script lodged somewhere in their brains, without even knowing it.

Somewhere in my Facebook feed this morning, there was a meme attributed to Robespierre about how the road to freedom is through education. Really?! Are you sure you want to quote Robespierre on that?

The road to freedom is not to be found in being "educated" by someone else on what you should be thinking. The road to freedom begins when you start thinking for yourself.

The USDA is one of those alphabet soup agencies that even predates FDR. It was founded under Abraham Lincoln, the "great emancipator". He called it the "people's department". Shades of Robespierre? The mission of the USDA is to regulate agriculture and to assure food safety and maybe also "end hunger." It's funny how a Federal agency aims to put an end to that growling in your stomach that tells you it's lunch time.

Americans do not eat dolphins. They don't eat dogs. And they certainly don't eat chimpanzees. And yet the USDA has taken on itself the mission to regulate all of these animals and to make decisions about individuals who keep them if they have even the slightest link with "the public". I know of dog breeders who have recently come under USDA jurisdiction. I know that anyone who breeds chimpanzees or allows the public to view them is also subject to USDA requirements.

Bow leafs through the latest issue of Bazaar

I want a female companion for Bow.

But, ironically, if I ever got one, that would open me up to USDA inspection, because they would label me a breeder. So it's in some measure thanks to the USDA that Bow still has no chimpanzee companion. But this does not mean that he lacks for companionship, as he is part of a family that loves him. and I am always there.

Bow should not have to choose between his human family and chimpanzee companions. There is no reason it should ever be that way. In a better world, there would not be any government intervention, and people would be free to meet all the companionship needs of their animals using their own judgment and the means at their disposal. Nobody would have to pray for a wild bottle-nosed mother dolphin to die just so as to keep their own beloved dolphin. And nobody would confuse companion animals with food or believe that it's the government's place to end hunger.

Territory and Violence: A Universal Approach

"People all need to look at Earth from space and realize there are no true borders except those made by humans."  

Wrong! There are borders made by humans, there are borders made by other animals, and chimpanzees are known to patrol their borders to keep strangers out. Dogs recognize borders, and so do many other animals. And you don't necessarily need to see a border in order for it to be real. Sometimes you can smell a border, or hear a border, and the true test of the border's validity is whether your life is threatened when you go past a certain point.

The border between my land and the neighbors'

Borders are real. They're important for survival, and they are worth fighting over. If you don't understand this, then you are not only missing the point of all recorded history, you are also never going to understand chimpanzees or dogs or most of the life on this planet.

If you want to start a fight, the first thing you do is set foot on somebody else's turf. You don't have to do anything else to be seen as a challenger. That in itself is an act of aggression. After that, any action that the person defending the turf takes against you is not aggression, but defense.

The border is the fence. A snake outside the fence is safe from the dogs.

Some animals can coexist within a territory, when their interests do not conflict. But a snake that thinks it can go hunting rodents in a yard owned by dogs has got another think coming. The yard reeks of dog. The dogs are noisy and boisterous. There is no way not to know that this yard is dog turf. Any rodents to be had here as prey belong to the dogs.

Being defensively assertive on somebody else's territory while refusing to leave is still aggression. I am guessing that a lot of people are confused about this issue.

Usually, I try to save the snakes, because I do think they make for better rodent control than dogs. So whenever I feel it is feasible, I will capture a snake, transport it in a plastic container and then let it loose in the field. But this snake was much more aggressive than most, and I was not sure at first whether it would be safe for me to intervene.

"I think you mean defensive. There were two dogs trying to kill it."

This is what one of my readers tweeted. The idea being that the fact that the snake was attacking the dogs to save its own life made the lunges defensive. I had to think about that for a while. It really depends on whose territory it is, whether the snake's actions are seen as aggressive or defensive. If the dogs had gone onto snake territory and attacked the snake, the very same actions by the snake would be rightfully described as defensive. But since this was in dog territory, I'd say the snake was aggressive.

If you don't get this rather abstract difference, then you will not understand most of the things that are happening all around you. You won't understand the news. You won't understand the real reasons for war. And you will not understand why a stray human standing right outside the border of a chimpanzee sanctuary   -- within touching range -- is seen as fair game for the male chimps in charge of the border.

Yesterday, in the news, there was an item about chimpanzees and killing.

"Murder" Comes Natually to Chimpanzees

But is it really "murder" when it involves protecting borders? Isn't it more like war?

"Lethal aggression in Pan is better explained by adaptive strategies than human impacts." That's the Nature headline.

Every group has its own territory. The territory provides all the necessities of life, but it will not support an unlimited number of individuals. Therefore, the stronger members of the group work together to keep outsiders out. It is a matter of survival. It works like that for chimpanzees, and it works like that for man. And it is not a matter to get all sentimental about.

But here's another point that various animal rights activists do not understand. Group membership is not decided genetically. It is based on mutual acceptance. The dogs kill snakes, but they know I have a right to be in the yard, because I am the leader of their group. They are killers, but they are also very loyal and supportive of those on their team.

Bow gets very upset every time a stranger shows up on my land. But we are family, and he is not going to hurt me. He often gestures for me to get out of the way, concerned that I might get hurt in one of his displays. He is a true gentleman, that way.

Group membership is a matter of being used to one another and forming lasting bonds. It is not about blood ties. That's why apartheid between humans and chimpanzees is the surest way toward enmity, and why coexistence requires committed and lasting contact.

Outdoors and In

With the weather becoming more hospitable, Bow has been enjoying several outings per day. Yesterday, he even had his three o'clock snack in the outer pen.

This morning, before lunch, Bow got in a vigorous exercise session with the dogs.

After exercising to his heart's content -- and believe me, this is definitely aerobic exercise -- Bow enjoyed just hanging out.

I didn't get a video of this, but Bow traversed the entire width of the ceiling like this.

When he was done with his outdoor exercise, Bow was much more quiet and subdued. First he groomed my hand.

Then he asked for his blanket. And once he had the blanket, he sat down on it and was very quiet for a long, long time.

When we get enough opportunities to be rowdy and cut loose out-of-doors, we can also have many quiet moments indoors.