Give Us This Day Our Daily Strange

Give Us This Day Our Daily Strange

by Marco M. Pardi

All comments are welcome and will receive a reply.

Do you wonder what your dog thinks when you enter a darkened room and turn on the light? I do. Is he thinking, My Two-Legs has super powers!? Is there some basal religious component in his thoughts of me, He Who Lets There Be Light. He who gives me my daily bread. He who forgives my trespass when I vomit on the carpet.? Or, is he thinking, Humans are so lame. The planet has been cycling from light to dark and back again for billions of years and humans have been here in some form for millions of those years. Yet, change the scenery a bit and they still haven’t learned to use their other senses. We should never have befriended them and helped them develop.

I just don’t know. Do you? I do know my dog’s hearing is diminishing so I’ve been showing him a few hand signals. For a 13 year old he learns very quickly. Most dog trainers stress repetition and reward. I suspect most dogs just draw it out for the treats; they got it the second time, if not the first. I had an attack dog in Africa who learned dozens of verbal and silent commands. One very hot evening I was walking around with him on base and discerned he was thirsty. I knew where a chilled water machine fountain was and we walked there, making sure no one else was around. It was a standard height machine with a foot lever at the bottom.

I walked up to the fountain, put both hands on the basin, leaned over the spout and placed my right foot on the lever. My dog watched the water come out. I then stood back and motioned him to the machine. He hesitated so I did the drink again. As I stepped back and motioned again he duplicated what I had done and had himself a good long drink. Maybe he was ready the first time and was concerned I would drink all the water. In any case, from then on he was attuned to any water fountains, but we were rarely on base.

He taught me some things. Out on the scrub desert he was apparently pleased when I smashed several desert scorpions that came scuttling at us. He seemed to understand that I had the boots and he didn’t. Why these scorpions launched a kamikaze attack is still a mystery to me. But when we came across a mob of big black beetles and I started stomping some of them he gave me a very disapproving look. It then occurred to me the beetles were no threat to us. But he knew that.

Years later I realized a behavior in my horses. A friend would occasionally meet me at the ranch for an afternoon ride. She was a three martini lunch lady, often without the lunch. Even when she approached my horses from downwind they would not let her near them if she had been drinking, even if, to me, she showed no outward signs of it. I could only surmise that the horses were somehow aware her mind was altered. True, horses are incredibly more perceptive than most people realize, but I felt this was exceptional, even strange.

My tri-color Persian cat also displayed interesting behavior. Since I adopted him from a newly divorced woman who had let him run free outside he was adamantly not a house cat, which worried me a lot but I could not hold out against his yowling to go out. During those years I had occasional crushing migraines, best treated by simply lying on my bed sometimes for hours. Then I noticed that when these happened he would jump onto the bed, settle beside me with his paw on my forehead and stay there for the duration. Although I’ve never read a cat book I’m betting there are no accounts of cats practicing Shiatsu on their humans.

Long a supporter of ethology, the study of animal behavior (I and others include humans in this) I strive to keep an appropriate distinction between the behaviors of non-human animals and human animals. The easy trap for many is anthropomorphizing – projecting human intentions on non-human behavior. But it is also easily possible to identify commonalities if one looks at fundamental levels and the context within which they manifest.

For example, I’ve long thought that salient markers of intelligence are the ability and willingness to play and a pronounced sense of humor. We could well add ability to interact cooperatively with other species. The attack dogs I mentioned earlier were never given a chance to truly play. We took them out of their kennels for training with tight, strong muzzles and ran them through repetitive drills which may have appeared playful in the first parts but quickly turned to bruising scrambles over 9 foot high barriers and fighting with a helmeted, face-masked man in a heavily padded attack suit. Worst of all was the fact this was done during the heat of the day, year-round, on the edge of the Sahara Desert. To say I didn’t see much in the way of intelligent life among the handlers is an understatement. But then, it was a rough time in a rough place.

Of course, I broke the rules. I smuggled cans of dog food to him and, when supplies were dropped to us I gave him all I could spare – of what was good for him. All but one of our patrol areas were solitary assignments; we had just each other. So, I took him off leash, told him to Stay, went and hid and then whistled for him. He found me every time, and got lots of hugs and praise. Those were the few times I saw his tail wag. It benefited both of us.

We’ve all seen videos of dogs soliciting help for injured canine companions. I have directly had that sad experience. But what about other species?

A few years ago I was standing quietly on my deck watching the birds come to the feeders and wait their turn. Since I also put seed in a tray for the bigger, ground feeders I routinely had as many as ten doves walking about only a few feet from me. But this afternoon a pair of doves landed on the railing near me. One dove sat perfectly still while the other alternately nudged (her? Him?) and looked at me. Something wasn’t right. I slowly went into the house, got a saucer of water, and returned slowly to the deck. As I slowly approached, the active dove stepped a few inches to one side but kept looking from me to the mate. I actually walked up to the mate and put the water in front of it, watched all the while by the other one.

No water was touched while I watched from either the deck or inside the house. After a while they were both gone. But I’ve long wondered what the problem was.

Again on the deck, I was watching squirrels scurrying about in the small woods out back when I heard something nearby. My yard is part of what long ago was a farm and the ground is still terraced as it slopes toward my house. On the side of a nearby slope a yearling female squirrel was rolling around in the fallen leaves. I thought she was hurt or ill. But then she gathered herself into a tuck and rolled heels over head for another descent down the slope. All by herself she was having fun. I’ve seen videos of crows and ravens body skiing down snow covered slopes then going up for another run. But I had never seen a squirrel do this. Maybe I could join her.

The point of all these examples, and the many more each of us could cite, is that there are wonders around us seven days (and nights) a week. Some people are more surprised than others, not being habitually observant or, as we find so many of us in America and throughout the world today, absorbed, shocked, and withdrawn as the United States circles the drain leading to a sewer of extreme oligarch driven de-regulation, greed, dishonesty, economic disparity, subjugation of women’s reproductive choices, and wanton destruction of the planet. A long term survey compiled from several international sources has documented a worldwide drop in wildlife from 1970 to 2010 of a minimum of 60%. As anyone with an I.Q. even approaching any of the species mentioned above knows, the policies under our current regime, even after it is deposed, will project their momentum far into the future, degrading our planet, causing massive displacement of human and non-human populations alike, and leaving a wasteland habitable only for those who would quickly and amorally take lethal action against others in order to survive.

I know some people who refuse to follow the news or read significant books, saying “politics are not my thing. They disturb my peace.” I continue to announce “Breaking News” nonetheless simply because very soon there will be no distraction powerful enough to return a sense of peace to those who did not speak up in time.

At the same time, having lived through protracted periods of life threatening stress, I firmly recognize the value of mental balance, the occasional respite. I suggest to those who are feeling the now very rational stirrings of true dread that they take a moment to look around, to see with new eyes, the “daily strange” around them. It can be far more effective than a fleeting You Tube video. And it can even give new support as one turns back again to participate in the daily struggle to stop the ongoing damage and to try to undo some of its effects. A timeworn saying is, “Stop and smell the flowers.” We might want to take heed. The suicidal overuse of “pesticides” is causing our pollinator species to plummet in numbers below critical levels.  We could modify an old military saying about cigarettes, “Smell ’em if you got ’em.”  

How about you, Dear Reader? What Daily Strange have you encountered today?