Let it Be

Bow reads about the animal shelters closing

When I moved to this county, there was no animal shelter. Stray dogs wandered freely in the neighborhood. Every once in a while someone adopted a stray. Every once in a while a pack of stray dogs attacked livestock or somebody's pet, and the leader of said pack was summarily shot. It was a wild west kind of world, as far as dogs were concerned. But by and large, we all managed to live in peace. Our first dog, Teyman, was a stray who found us on October 3, 2001.

Teyman and Sword in 2002

Of course, by the same token, somebody's stray cattle could always turn up on our land unannounced, like this  calf that showed up on November 2, 2002. You just have to expect this, living out here in the country.

You could not always tell, either, which dog wandering on your property was a stray and which was a dog owned by one of the neighbors.  Often, they did not wear a collar, either way. So you needed to exercise common sense when reacting to the presence of a new dog. It would not do to be trigger happy and shoot every stray who showed up. Most of the time, tolerance reigned.

Negev was a stray who adopted us -- but was later killed by a pack of wild dogs
(I modeled the hound in In Case There's a Fox after him.)

When we adopted a stray, there was no middleman. When we enforced justice, there was also no middleman. People paid for their own decisions about what went on on their own property. Sometimes things did not turn out as well as we might like, because there is a price to freedom. We lost Negev, pictured above, to the pack of wild dogs that killed him. After that, we built the fence. Before there was a fence, Teyman and Negev roamed freely. After we built the fence, whatever dogs we had stayed put..

Brownie was a stray who adopted us after Sword's gymnastics class in Houston
(By the time we got him, we had a fence.)

And then in 2006 the animal shelter in our county opened. They solicited donations and were a non-profit organization. They took in strays. They encouraged adoption. They showed pictures of dogs on social media. We got used to the idea that they would always be there. And this past week, they closed their doors for good, half a million dollars in debt. How do you go half a million dollars in debt? Who even has half a million dollars to lend?

Image source

The Animal Shelter Texas County Closing

I mention this, because I am constantly being  badgered  by well-meaning people about how I should send Bow off to live in a sanctuary. Sanctuaries are nonprofits, They have seemingly unlimited resources. They could provide Bow with so much more than I can -- wide open spaces (not!), plenty of mates and the best food an ape could hope to eat. Don't I care about Bow? Don't I want him to have all these things? Why not just send him to a sanctuary and free myself from my twelve hour days, seven days a week, always with Bow in the pens -- unless I can pay a sitter sixteen dollars an hour for every hour I'm away. It's a win-win, right? Better life for Bow, better life for me.

But do you really believe that any sanctuary could afford to replace me? If we forget housing, utilities and food, it would still cost at least $70,000.00 a year to give Bow the full time babysitting that I give him for free. If you take into account the almost fifteen years that I have been sitting for Bow, twelve hours a day, seven days a week -- or paying for someone else to do so -- that would come down to a million dollars. Just for the care of one chimpanzee.

The world cannot afford that! No sanctuary could possibly afford that for every chimpanzee they took in. And some of the people that work for them will require more than sixteen dollars per hour to put their lives at risk to interact with chimpanzees. Even though many of the sanctuaries will prevent any humans from ever going in with their chimpanzee inmates, still the cost in human employment fees will be high. Think about the benefits that each employee will have to be given -- health insurance and retirement benefits, FICA and FUTA -- all things that I did without. Think about the operating costs. And when the economy takes a downturn and there are no more donations and the current administration stops pumping money into "liberal causes", what will happen to all those chimpanzees trapped in sanctuaries? Who will feed them? Where will they go when the nonprofit goes belly up?

Nothing works quite as well as laissez faire. And while all these nonprofits are pretending to be private charities, they really are not. They are operating with impunity, because when they go under, none of the people responsible for the bad decisions ever have to pay for their mistakes personally.

Building a shelter and having people work there is always going to create expenses that eventually will harm the dogs who are meant to be helped.  There is another shelter that is closing in this area, mentioned in the article. It is called Diana's Grove Dog Shelter. They, too, have fallen on bad times. And they are trying to charge people $100.00 a dog for "adoption fees." Do you think that if I had had to pay $100.00 a dog for Teyman, Negev and Brownie, that I would have adopted them? These shelters are not helping stray mutts find owners. They are pricing homeless dogs right out of ever getting adopted. Nobody can afford that for a dog with no papers. If they wanted to pay that kind of price, they would go to a breeder and get a puppy with a pedigree and no history.

The free market and stray dog anarchy work a lot better than these do-gooder charities. If there is a dog that nobody else wants, and somebody chooses to adopt him, the natural purchase price is zero.That's the market price, and that is the going rate. Without the intervention of anyone, dogs place themselves.  Sure, down the road there will be vet fees and food costs, but each person will decide for himself how much to spend on those things. Meanwhile, without the middleman, more dogs can find a home, because more people can afford them.

And what if they don't find a home? Some will hunt for a living and some will beg, and a few will be shot. But isn't that better than spending half a million dollars in public funds on a shelter that has to close in just a little over a decade?

Related

http://www.pubwages.com/47/the-strays-of-tamsui

Cowboy Meets Nala

Anytime something interesting happens outside, I share the footage with Bow.

The most interesting thing that happened yesterday was a chance meeting between Nala the kitten and Cowboy, the neighbor dog.

I was just out there enjoying the wildflowers by the fence and watching the insects that buzzed and fluttered around them.

The kitten, Nala, has taken to following me wherever I go, and on hot days, she naps in the shade while I chase butterflies.

While I was on the lookout for Monarchs, and searching between the blooms of the bidens artistosa, along came Cowboy, the neighbor dog.

Everybody in the neighborhood knows Cowboy by name, and we all accept him on our land, because he is an exceptionally well mannered dog. He does not chase livestock. He does not tease my dogs, and in general he seems to understand the rules of civilized behavior. But Nala had never met him before, and she was very defensive.

It took quite a few minutes before the standoff was over. Cowboy was friendly, but he did not force himself on Nala. He just circled her at a discreet distance, with his tail wagging.

Eventually, a truce was established. Nala rested in the shade, and Cowboy stayed far away from her.

This arrangement left me the time to watch a Monarch butterfly on my side of the fence as it made its way to the other side.

Should dogs be allowed to roam free, even when they are owned? It depends on the dog. If he is well behaved, why not? There was a time when all dogs roamed free, and when they behaved badly they were shot. This left only well behaved dogs roaming the streets, the fields and the pastures.

It seems counter-intuitive, but a laissez faire policy -- both toward the dogs and towards the people who have to defend their property from unruly dogs -- is ultimately much more humane and results in a much happier situation for both dogs and humans than a policy of zero tolerance for strays and zero tolerance for property owners defending what is theirs with a gun.

I saw a situation where strays wandered free when I lived in Taiwan: The Strays of Tamsui. The dogs were well behaved and would not even accept food from a stranger on the street. They stayed well clear of passers-by, and they never formed hostile bands. Some people that I spoke to about how idyllic this situation was told me I was naive. There had been great cruelty to dogs that led to this well behaved population of strays. I was not being naive. I understood that a balance has to be struck.

I understand that dogs can form gangs. I have seen this with my own eyes here on my land. I have had one dog killed by other dogs, and I have had to stand my ground and defend against attacking dogs, long before there was an animal shelter in this county. I am not naive.

But here is the takeaway: if you want to be able to allow nice dogs like Cowboy to roam, you need to take the risk that every once in a while, a stray may have to be shot by a landowner. This is part of the process that creates a balance. Balance is not some kind of hippy notion of peace and flowers. Balance means the give and take that allows us to move freely among others, with each individual respecting the rights of others. If you take away all the guns and the freedom of motion, that balance can never be established. And that's true about free range children, too, and maybe someday chimpanzees as well.

After all, we did the same with humans in general. We didn't just miraculously become more enlightened until it became safe to walk among strangers in peace. We just culled out those among us with the more violent tendencies. Sometimes people forget that.

Neighbor Dog

It's nice to be snug as a bug in a rug at home, and to be able to contemplate the inside of one's mouth -- to think inward thoughts.

Bow has the luxury of doing just that for as long as he likes. But he also likes to go outside and brave the elements.

Yesterday morning, it was windy and cold and it looked as if a storm was approaching.

We seemed on the verge of a storm.

Every direction you looked, it looked as if something big was about to happen in the sky.

Bow went inside and then went out again, and as a way to keep warm, he displayed.

Leo obliged Bow by engaging him, while Brownie remained aloof.

But there was no storm. Things settled down. In the afternoon, as I was going for my regular walk, I spotted a dog going into my pasture, entering from the road into the bushy underbrush. I decided to pretend that I did not see that, because the last thing I wanted was a confrontation about neighbor dogs on my property. Maybe if I ignored the dog, the dog would ignore me.

But he didn't ignore me. He came right up and greeted me as if we were old friends, and for a moment I was disoriented, and I thought he looked just like my old dog Osiris, who was born near Harrison, Arkansas and whose photo is always on my mantel. He died before I went to grad school.

Bow looks at a photo of Osiris

But then I realized it was just Cowboy. the neighbor dog. And Cowboy wanted to join me in my walk. I didn't invite him, but when he saw that I was going for a walk on my mowed path, he decided he would lead the way.

Just to be certain he didn't lose me, Cowboy kept turning back to make sure I was still on the path.

What I found most interesting was the way he stuck to the path, when he could easily have gone exploring in the underbrush. If you did not know any better, you might have been convinced that he had been trained not to leave the well-trodden path. However, that was not the case. When we parted ways, he went to explore the brambles and the narrow footways the deer and rabbits and coyotes had made among the trees and bushes. It was just that as long as we were keeping company, he understood that I would not stray from the path, so neither did he.

If we were in an American city, Cowboy, with no apparent collar or tags, would be considered a stray. But since we are living in the country, people know who he is and where he lives, and since he does not cause any harm, he is tolerated. Even I tolerate him, because he does not go near the fence to tease my dogs, the way some latchkey dogs have been known to do when their masters are away.

Should dogs be allowed to roam? It's a question that I've thought about before. In Taiwan, even in the cities, there are stray dogs who are well behaved and well fed, even though they are not owned.

The Strays of Tamsui

Feral dogs, people will warn you, can form packs and attack livestock, other dogs and even people. I know this, not just because I have been told, but because I have seen it out here with my own eyes, before there was even a "shelter" in this county. Dogs got shot when they broke the rules.

I don't let my own dogs roam, just as I would never allow Bow to go out under the present conditions. I am a very cautious person. But I can't help but feel that when we get used to a certain context, such a society that is intolerant of stray dogs and stray children and homeless people, we are moving one step closer to our own imprisonment and that of our children.

Stray dogs and stray children used to be the hallmark of every human city, and while their presence was sometimes an eyesore and a nuisance, I would rather see them roam free than all get institutionalized and/or adopted. I would rather see dogs adopting humans than humans adopting dogs. Brownie, for instance, chose us.

Cowboy reminded me yesterday that a dog out on his own can be well behaved and trustworthy, and that it takes a certain type of community to allow us to see that this, too, is a possibility.

Enjoying the Bounty

Bow is curious and interested in all things. He sometimes takes off my glasses and examines them very gently and then returns them to me. He has electronics, including his own computer, and he can use them. But he doesn't have to. If he chooses not to, that choice is respected.

Freedom of choice is the key. This is true of electronics as well as people. It's not what gadgets we have that determine whether we are happy, but our own ability to turn things on and off at will. It would be terrible to have a television set that you could not turn off or a roommate that you could not ask to leave when you needed to be alone. It's the lack of privacy and the absence of choice that characterize a true prison.

Sometimes I just wish I could put a dome over all ten acres of my land, so that Bow could enjoy it freely. Our life is pretty good. We don't need more. We just need a better way to take pleasure in what we already have.

The blackberries are starting to ripen, and the deer and the rabbits are raising their families here. I have been seeing a lot more wildlife on my property than I have in years past. Sometimes I tell myself that I am simply more observant than I was before, but that may not be the whole story. If there is more pressure on the wildlife elsewhere, they may be coming here seeking asylum.

Yesterday I picked blackberries and brought them to Bow in the outer pen to eat.

Usually, when I bring Bow blackberries, he picks them out of my hand one by one and pops them into his mouth.

But this time he was impatient, so instead he brought his mouth to the blackberries.

He put his lips over the bunch of blackberries in my hand and siphoned them gently into his mouth.

It took  very little time.

Before I knew it, the palm of my hand was empty, and Bow's mouth was full of blackberries.

And then Bow leaned back and relaxed and enjoyed a fistful of blackberries swirling around in his mouth all at once.

Someday, I'd like to see Bow free to wander out there among the blackberry bushes, picking the ripe fruit by hand or by mouth, whichever suits him best.

The other animals on my land are currently enjoying free run of the property. There were two rabbits in particular yesterday that I saw all over the place, romping around and hopping from place to place. They were inseparable.

Even when they knew they had been spotted, they stayed stock still and let me snap their picture.

In the evening, at twilight, after I returned from taking the garbage to the dump, a family of deer jumped over my internal road from the pasture to the lawn and from there into the woods. One of them was smaller than the others, and they actually stopped to let it catch up. But I was not able to get a picture, and just then some rabbits hopped in front of my car on the way from the lawn to the pasture. I had to slow down to let them pass. My property is becoming a high traffic area for wildlife.

As I approached the garage I saw those two inseparable rabbits again, and I got out of the car to film them. The dogs, who are not as free as the rabbits, were barking in protest.

I think that my land can appropriately be seen as a wildlife sanctuary, not because any legal action has been taken to label it as such, but because the wildlife see it that way. A sanctuary is a place where one seeks asylum by coming there of one's own free will, and where one is free to leave also, when one wants to. A sanctuary is not a place to which other people have decided you have to go and  from which you cannot escape once you get there. That would be more like a prison.

Children and  owned dogs have less freedom than rabbits. Dogs have to stay in their master's yard, which is the price of being cared for. Sometimes, strays do have more freedom. My eyes were opened to this when I lived in Taiwan. I admired the strays of Tamsui. The price of freedom, of course, is that no one is looking out for you. But the price of being "safe" is that you have no freedom. This is also the difference between a domesticated and a wild rabbit.

Are you domesticated? Or are you free? Which would you rather be? Every individual has a different answer. Each has a different path to tread. We can no more force someone to be free than we can hope to domesticate someone who does not wish to be.

Can Bow decide where he wants to be once he grows up? I would like to think that he will be able to make that decision. But whatever decision he makes, it should not be irrevocable. Human grown ups make mistakes, too. Sometimes they take a job that they do not like. Sometimes they enter a marriage that turns out to be not so viable over the long term. Sometimes they buy a house that they cannot afford. The good thing about being free is that you can quit your job, divorce your spouse, sell your house, and even move to a different country if the regime in your own country becomes too oppressive. Mistakes can be corrected. The rabbits and the deer, the turtles and the snakes are free to come here, but they are also free to go.  Doesn't a chimpanzee deserve the same freedom?