Coloring Outside the Lines

Yesterday Sword had a dental appointment, so Lawrence came in even though it was not a Wednesday. The dentist's office is  closed on Wednesdays, so we had no choice but to accept the Monday appointment.

I have been desperately trying to de-clutter the house and I found an old workbook for practicing upper case letters which had been used by Sword when she was in  preschool. It was one of many items we were planning to get rid of. Since some of the pages were blank, I suggested to Lawrence that Bow might like to try his hand at tracing the letters. It is a colorful, attractive booklet with lots of pictures, and Bow likes that sort of thing.

Here is a video of what happened when Lawrence offered this activity to Bow.

In the past, Bow has been rather successful at writing letters freehand. But he does not like to take instruction, or to do as he is told. He has no interest in pirates, and he loves pictures of food. So on the page for writing and recognizing the P, he went straight for the picture of the hamburger instead. The instructions in the booklet were to trace the P, and then later write a P under the picture of something beginning with a P. If you'll notice, Bow does seem to have written an H under the picture of the hamburger. Well, at least there is something that looks rather like an H there.

Controlling Your Space: The Freedom Not to Allow Others In

The last few days have seen me drop my normal publishing projects in order to deal with an unexpected crisis: the Missouri State legislature is planning to pass a Non-Human Primate Act that could end up making it impossible for me and Bow to stay together in our home. It is called SB 666 and it presents a clear and present danger to Project Bow as we know it.

I'm not going to rehash all of that here. This blog is where I tell about my day to day life with Bow. For instance, here's a video of Bow playing with a new toy, yesterday.

As you can see, Bow is always looking for unexpected and interesting ways to make use of objects, and he seldom feels confined to the manufacturer's original intent. Because Bow is free to think for himself, he  is never bored, even when he doesn't have a new toy. He knows how to amuse himself, and he is never alone. Well, except at night, when he seems to want everything to be taken out, and after the usual bedtime routine, he asks me to leave, too. I think he appreciates having some privacy at night.

The difference between being confined to a pen that is your home and being confined to a cage that is a prison is this: at home, you can control your space. You can invite people in. You can also ask them to go out. You can decide what things you will have in the pen with you. You can ask that some of the things you don't want anymore be removed. You can help to plan the menu. You can declare which are your favorite foods, and what food you will not eat at all, because you despise it.

Freedom is as much about controlling our space as controlling where we go. Freedom is about the right to say "No."

Freedom is not the absolute right to go anywhere. None of us can decide that we will go where we are not welcome. I can't force myself into your home, if you haven't invited me, and neither can Bow. But I can decide who I invite to my home, and who is not invited. The same is true for Bow.

Someone remarked that Bow has so few objects in with him in the pen at any given point. Usually, it's the potty that stays, while other objects come and go. But did you know that Bow's decision to accept the potty was a major breakthrough? Did you know that Bow used to have to be taken to the potty, because he didn't want to allow it to stay with him? When we first started in the pens, the potty wasn't in with Bow, because Bow wouldn't allow it. It took time before he realized it might be a good thing to allow the potty to stay.

In the same way, Bow's computer is seldom in the pen, because Bow does not want it there. Sometimes Lawrence tries to entice Bow to use the computer by bringing it inside the pen when Bow has not asked for it, but many times Bow tells him he does not want the computer and that it should be taken out at once! Lawrence and I both understand that if Bow does not want something with him, then that object must go. It is only when Bow has asked to use the computer that he behaves well with it.

Someone suggested that taking things in and out of the pens is a way to control Bow. But do you imagine that if Bow wanted to prevent something from being taken out, he would not have a very big say in the matter? Taking things in and out is one of the ways that Bow controls his space -- and his life.

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. What would make it a cage would be if Bow lost the right to order people out. What would make it a cage would be if others could impose themselves on Bow. It would be a cage if Bow lost control of his space.

I am hoping that we don't have to leave our pens in the Missouri, Ozarks, because these pens are our haven and our home. But if we lose control of the space, we will need to find some other space that we can control.

Everyone wants to eat.

Yesterday, I was hard at work on hub about dominance. Dominance is not my favorite topic, because I am still struggling with it, but it certainly comes up a lot when dealing with a chimpanzee. The truth of the matter is that it's a tricky thing, and that all is not as it appears. I do have to stand up to Bow and not let him walk all over me, but at the same time, he lets me know in all sorts of subtle and not so subtle ways that when he does cooperate with me, it's because he chooses to, and not because he has to.

Even when Bow gets in trouble and has to be disciplined, the only reason I can stick to my plan of discipline is that Bow allows it. He respects me, and he demands that I respect him, and it's just not that easy to explain to outsiders. People who pick up on it and instinctively understand this concept, like Lawrence, get to have a fine relationship with Bow. But others, some who are too soft and others who are too harsh, just don't make it in the program.

Meanwhile, on Hubpages, all sorts of people have been sounding out about dominance. Some of the things they said were so bizarre! For instance, that one person can "give" dominance to another person. So I went and wrote a hub about it. And in  the process of writing the hub, I watched a video clip from Capra's Meet John Doe. In that scene, Gary Cooper is an unemployed, homeless man on the verge of starvation, and Barbara Stanwyck, a savvy newspaperwoman, hires him to perpetrate a fraud on the public, in order to sell newspapers. Watching the scene, I wondered: "Who is dominant?" After all, Gary Cooper is bigger and stronger than Barabara Stanwyck, and he could just take what he wanted from her, rather than making a deal. But somehow he doesn't. He defers to her power and her position. Does he do this because he has to or because he wants to?

Bow watched the scene with me. So I asked him: "Bow, who is dominant in that scene?"

He spelled: "Everyone wants to eat."

"That guy is very smart!"

When a repair person comes to call, there is a procedure that we go through at Project Bow. Before we discuss the matter at hand, before we show him the problem, before he ever sets foot inside any part of the inner sanctum that is the pen system, the newcomer has to say hi to Bow. They are introduced, through the grid of the outer door. Bow has to smell the person's breath and attempt to engage them in a game of jumping up and down or chase. Only after this preliminary step may we go deeper into the pens and attend to the problem.

It's just a matter of personal courtesy, of etiquette. This is Bow's home. You don't go into someone's home and look all around and make comments about them and ignore the fact that they are there. You would not like it if someone did this to you, and Bow feels the same way.

Last week, it was plumbers. Bow's big toilet stopped flushing, and it took a team of two plumbers to figure out that it was the batteries that needed changing, and where the batteries were, and how to remove them. I introduced the first plumber to Bow, and all was well, but unfortunately nobody told me there was going to be second plumber.  I left to run errands while Lawrence watched Bow, and when I returned, and I was putting groceries away, I heard Bow screaming.

I went to see what was the matter. Bow was screaming at the second plumber, a chubby fellow we'd never seen before. Later, I asked Bow why screamed at the new plumber. He spelled: "He was bad."

"How do you know he was bad?"

"He asked why you have a chimpanzee. He's a bad man."

So this week, I stayed while the locksmith was here to estimate how much it would cost to replace our current locks with prison grade security locks. Bow is getting bigger, and our locks now seem flimsy, compared to his strength. The locksmith was very open minded, and he talked with Bow for some time, before going in. He even played chase. He said that Bow was obviously very intelligent, and the current locks were no match for Bow's strength. The new locks would not only be stronger, they would be "pick proof", which is good because Bow might one day decide to pick the lock, and he's certainly bright enough to do so.

After the locksmith left, Bow told me: "That guy is very smart!"

Writing Sample

Yesterday, as Lawrence was about to leave for the day, he asked in passing: "Why do you think Bow can't write?"

It seemed like a strange question, since I never said I thought he couldn't write. "It's not that he can't write, it's that he won't."

Lawrence handed me an index card sized rectangle of cardstock and said: "See, this is what he wrote. I wrote the letters on top, and I made a box, and he wrote the letters inside the box."

I glanced at it, and he seemed to be disappointed that I wasn't more enthusiastic. "Now, they don't all look so good, but some of them are pretty close." And then he explained how he had been writing something, and Bow wanted to write, and how he had had to hold Bow's hand to steady him, but it was Bow who had written the letters in the boxes, without being guided by Lawrence. "Now, I know for proof, the fact that I held his hand means it's no good, but he can do  it!"

I reassured Lawrence that I believed him, and that I wasn't surprised because I'd seen it before.  I knew Bow could do  it. He wrote his name in  Hebrew when he was much younger. It was sloppy but recognizable. He did it with nobody holding his hand at all. But after that, he scribbled all over it, so  it wasn't visible any longer. When I let him keep the pen and paper too long, he scribbled so hard there were holes. Bow's problem isn't intelligence. It's self control!

He can read, but if you let him have a book, he will tear it apart. He can write, but even if he does write, he will destroy the paper if you let him keep at it. He can use a computer, but he's rather take it apart.

There are probably hyperactive humans with similar problems. Getting them to settle down is the hard part. Getting them to write is easy. If we had a breakthrough in self control with Bow, everything else would fall into place. But getting to that breakthrough is the hard part, and it's not likely to come with maturity.  Older male chimpanzees are typically less cooperative, not more so. We need to  have the breakthrough now, when we can still  go in.