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DOING THEIR EVIL BIDDING
Dolphins are not only bad to humans and to other animals, but in perhaps their most fiendishly clever accomplishment, they have even convinced us to be bad to other animals on their behalf.
The successful campaign for dolphin-safe tuna was based on outrage that this intelligent creature was being caught in nets used for tuna fishing and killed. Now, most fishermen no longer locate tuna schools by looking for the dolphins that follow them, nor do they encircle the lot of them with a huge net and drown dolphins by the thousands for the sake of your lunchtime sandwich.
Problem solved, right?
Not so fast. So, how do fishermen find those tuna now, instead?
The ocean is so huge that animals living there can go their whole lives without encountering a solid floating object. If you put one down, they have a tendency to come and check it out en masse. Who can blame them? They’ve never seen anything like it.
So that’s the new trick. The industry uses “fish-aggregating devices” that get them all to gather around. However, tuna aren’t the only ones that show up to the party; the objects are equally fascinating to endangered sea turtles, at-risk shark species, rays, and other kinds of fish—as well as small tuna that haven’t lived long enough to reproduce yet. With the new method of fishing, for each dolphin that’s been saved, here’s what’s estimated is killed instead:• 25,824 small tuna
• 382 mahi-mahi
• 188 wahoo
• 82 yellowtail and other large fish
• 27 sharks and rays
• 1 billfish
• 1,193 triggerfish and other small fish
• 0.06 sea turtles
Oh, and those dolphins that were being killed when we did it the old way? The species were mostly spinner dolphins and spotted dolphins, which are not even endangered. Hey, sharks and rays and mahi don’t have that hypnotic smile, so what’s a primate to do?
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So it’s been suggested that dolphins kill the harbor porpoises for practice, so they’ll be good at killing their own babies. Which they probably do for the same reasons as many other animals, as we saw in Chapter 4. Dolphins breed infrequently, and who wants to put the effort into raising another guy’s offspring? As one researcher notes, if the female you’ve got your eye on already has a kid, “there’s no point in hanging around for two years with the wrong male’s calf.”
PERVERTS WITH FINS
Dolphin expert Karen Pryor has observed, “the sentimental view that these animals are harmless stems at least in part from the fact that they are usually in the water and we are usually on boats or dry land: they can’t get at us.” But while most of us have the sense not to walk up to a lion on the savannah, many are deluded enough to purposely get in the water with dolphins, and that’s where the problems start. Yes, many swim away from their dolphin encounters unharmed, sharing stories of “unconditional love, peace, and bliss” as they looked into that smiling cetacean face. There are even stories of helpful dolphins saving desperate humans from drowning. However, as more than one rational individual has observed, there’s a large gap in the evidence; you’re not going to hear from the people who the dolphins push away from shore.
However, there have been victims of dolphin hostility who lived to tell the sobering true tale. A dolphin named Georges became a tourist attraction at a harbor in England in the early 2000s, attracting thousands to watch him and swim with him. All very nice and no doubt good for the local economy—until Georges began to show what was delicately described as “an unhealthy interest” in divers.
To put it more bluntly, Georges was attempting to mate with them. An expert who was called in, familiar with the male dolphin courtship techniques described above, warned of the danger: “When dolphins get sexually excited, they try to isolate a swimmer, normally female. They do this by circling around the individual and gradually move them away from the beach, boat or crowd of people.”
Bad enough if you’re a female dolphin—for a human, a good way to be drowned. Visitors were warned of the risk, but they persisted, listening to people who called their encounters a “miracle” and “most amazing thing I’ve ever done” instead of to those who were bitten, hospitalized, or saw their children pushed into deep water. As a rescue diver said in exasperation, “It’s quite obvious that people are getting hurt and they are getting out of the water but 15 minutes later they are getting back in.”
EIGHT
With Friends Like These . . .
IF DOGS ARE MAN’S BEST FRIEND, OUR SPECIES NEEDS TO TAKE a hard look at our self-esteem problem.
Canine bad behavior is so routine that there is a whole genre of self-help literature for coping with it. Millions of words have been written about providing clear consequences and making sure that dogs don’t get a free ride. But the advice goes unheeded again and again: One look at that wagging tail and sad eyes, and we pat them on the head and forgive them. Then the minute we turn our backs they’re at it again, knocking over the trash, peeing on the carpet, and chewing our possessions to shreds. And as we’ll see in this chapter, that stuff is just the start.
Don’t we deserve to be with someone who treats us better? Take a hard look at the evidence, and maybe you’ll feel empowered to take the first step out of this dysfunctional relationship.
NO ACCIDENT
Most people are positive that their dogs would never bite them. They’re probably right. Why do something that obvious when there are much sneakier ways to hurt someone? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than eightysix thousand emergency room visits per year are due to fall injuries caused by pets. And if your dog tries to convince you that those cats underfoot are to blame, note that dogs were almost 7.5 times as likely to cause injuries as cats—88 percent of the emergency room visits studied were the fault of a dog.
What’s especially sinister is that these incidents seem totally innocent. Biting may result in unpleasant consequences for the biter, but people don’t blame the dog when they trip over it. One woman broke her ankle when chasing her puppy around the dining room and spent seven weeks in a cast, but—while still walking with a cane and undergoing physical therapy—denied that the dog was responsible:I can’t blame the dog. I can only blame myself and the slippery floors . . . I was angry at myself for trying to keep pace with a 10-month-old puppy as a 44-year-old woman.
Still, sometimes living with us is so aggravating that dogs are going to lose it and use their teeth. And we ought to admit that we knew this going into the relationship. As one evolutionary biologist said, “It’s difficult to domesticate a large carnivore; they tend to eat your children and bite you.” Yet if we thought that selective breeding for small and cute would solve the problem, it didn’t exactly work out that way. While uninformed lawmakers think that pit bulls need to be banned, one careful study found that the breeds with the most aggression toward humans were Chihuahuas, dachshunds, and Jack Russell terriers. All cute little pups you can carry in your arms—if you’re brave enough.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
When dogs do bite, they’re generally just trying to keep us in line, not eliminate us entirely—we’re much too useful to them. Despite enormous media attention devoted to fatal dog attacks, you’re five times more likely to be killed by lightning than by a dog, no doubt because lightning doesn’t need us to open its canned food.
Still, it’s fair to point out that even in Australia, where it seems like all the wildlife is specifically designed to kill you, dogs are statistically the most dangerous animal. The continent is home to sharks, crocs, venomous snakes, spiders, and jellyfish and less obvious terrors as well: Even the cute platypus has venomous spines on its feet, and someone was recently attacked so severely by a wombat that he had to fight the animal to the death with an ax.
But the numbers show that even Down Under, you’re much more likely to be injured by your dog than by any of those hazardous beasts. There’s an average of
one shark fatality a year, but between 1997 and 2003, eleven people were killed by dogs. And even when it comes to lesser injuries, dogs stand out: On average, 3,867 hospital visits each year are due to stings and bites by snakes, spiders, insects, and plants combined, but dogs by themselves are to blame for 2,000.
And the worst part? In the majority of cases the dogs go for friends and family. At least the wildlife is attacking strangers.
GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE . . .
Anyone who has a dog knows that it understands many of the advantages of human technology. From rides in the car to tennis balls to food that you don’t have to run down and kill, civilization has been very good to canines. And some dogs also recognize that human weapons are an advance over natural ones. Unlike teeth, guns have long-range capabilities, and of course, no one believes you did it on purpose:■ In New Zealand, a man on a hunting trip was shot in the butt by his own shotgun when his dog jumped into his truck after him and stepped on the trigger.
■ A teenager lost several toes when the same thing happened to him on a hunting trip in Arkansas.
■ In Oregon, a man on a duck-hunting trip was shot in the legs and buttocks when his dog jumped into his boat. The shotgun blast blew a hole in the boat, too.
And because authorities can’t believe that a dog could be to blame, suspicion often falls on someone else:■ A woman in Florida said that her husband was accidentally shot and killed when the family dog knocked over a rifle. She was charged with murder.
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A HUNGER FOR LEARNING
Do dogs really eat homework? Students who use this excuse are inevitably considered unreliable witnesses. But others whose motives are less questionable have also told tales of dogs consuming irreplaceable paperwork. A dog ate the only copy of the first draft of John Steinbeck’s book Of Mice and Men, although typically, the author made excuses:I was pretty mad, but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically. I didn’t want to ruin a good dog for a manuscript I’m not sure is good at all.
And a man in South Carolina was unable to run for a position on the board of education when his puppy ate the petition with more than two hundred signatures on it that was needed to validate his candidacy—the night before it was due.
Other sorts of valuables eaten by dogs are sometimes recoverable, if the victim is willing to suffer through the process. When a North Carolina woman who’d lost $400 cash found parts of the bills in her dog’s droppings, she began to collect and wash them in hopes of having enough pieces to exchange for new bills.
It’s a little easier for those whose dogs eat less digestible assets, but still, the owner of a dog who swallowed a $20,000 diamond in a Maryland jewelry store reported mixed feelings. “It was not that pleasant. I followed him; I had to pick up his stuff; I had to go through the things,” he said, but victory was sweet, if stinky: “I can understand what it was like in the old Gold Rush. I felt like I had just hit pay dirt.”
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■ A man in California was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of his wife, despite his claim that his dog tripped him while he was holding a pistol.
In the latter case, the trial ended in a hung jury, with three members voting to convict but nine others—no doubt dog owners themselves—voting not guilty.
“WORKING” DOGS
Even when dogs seem to be obeying our orders, they’re not always doing quite what we think. Take dogs that guard flocks of sheep and other livestock. Experts studying these canine employees find that they do get the job done, but it’s not because they work hard at presenting a courageous and fearsome front:Livestock guarding has little to do with the legendary brave companion fiercely protecting its master’s property. Rather, guarding dogs protect by disrupting predators by means of behavior that is ambiguous or contextually inappropriate: barking, tail-wagging, social greeting, play behavior, and occasionally, aggression.
Translation: These dogs aren’t guarding, they’re just goofing around, and the predator’s reaction is less fear than it is, “WTF?”
Unfortunately, there’s little hope of getting people to recognize such subtle subversive behavior, since some don’t see the problem even when it bites them on a limb. A policewoman in England responded to an armed robbery at a pub with her trusty police dog, and when she was shot in the leg by one of the thieves, she commanded him to attack. How was her confidence in her canine colleague rewarded? He turned on her and bit her arm as the pair of thieves escaped. The officer was sure it was all an innocent mistake—she said of her dog, whose name should perhaps have been a warning: “I don’t blame Chaos at all.”
CANINES AND CARS
It’s easy to shut our eyes to the psychological harm caused by dogs. But it’s much harder to be in denial about the joy our friends take in wrecking our personal possessions, since the evidence is so tangible. Still, shredded couches and chewed-up shoes may not prepare your mind for the frequency of one particular sort of canine property damage. As we saw in Chapter 2, many animals interfere with traffic—but only one does it by actually doing the driving:■ In New Zealand, a man left his dog in his vehicle with the motor running while he ran into a store to buy beer. His dog shifted out of park and drove through the doors of a neighboring café.
■ In Oklahoma, a dog waiting in a car at a car wash shifted it into reverse, backed it out of the car wash bay onto the highway, then looped around, still driving backward, back to the car wash. (The owner’s relief at the miraculous lack of damage was short-lived: Her vehicle was impounded by responding officers when she was unable to provide proof of insurance.)
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THE MENACE BEHIND THE PURR
The eternal war between dogs and cats is nothing next to the never-ending debate between their owners, and this chapter should in no way be taken as supporting evidence for feline superiority. In fact, even when it comes to traditional canine bad behavior specialties, cats actually give dogs quite a good run for the money. The most iconic example of this is the attack on the mailman.
In England, these incidents frequently make the news when the household of a repeat offender has its mail delivery cut off. And if you’ve read this far, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the cats are only part of the problem—most of the owners deny any culpability on the part of the beloved kitties, reacting with either disbelief or, yes, laughter:• In August 2002, a letter carrier attacked by cats called Boo Boo and Yogi told a dramatic story:I put up with it the first couple of times, but the last scratch was quite deep. Blood was dripping on to the driveway and over other letters in my bag. After the attack the cat jumped up on the window sill and looked out at me as if to say “got you that time.”
Their owner was incredulous:Mr. Davies said: “I can’t understand the attacks. They are both really well behaved cats but are very playful.”
• In June 2009, another owner pooh-poohed a letter threatening suspension of delivery: “We were not around when this happened, but it seems some mail was put through the letterbox and their hand was scratched. Illy is only a kitten and I am sure she was just playing.... Everyone finds it so amusing that our playful kitten has been mistaken for some savage beast.”
• In October 2009, Magic dashed out his cat door after the carrier three days in a row, but his owner was indignant about the suspension notice: “I told them my cat wouldn’t hurt a fly. . . . He’s a soft cat. We’ve never seen him attack someone and we’ve never heard of him hurting anyone before. I can’t believe they are saying this.”
• In April 2010, Tiger’s owner scoffed at reports that he was assaulting mail carriers as they approached the door and chasing them down the path: “Tiger is 19 years old, he dribbles when he sleeps and snores—he sleeps for 20 hours a day.”
• In November 2010, another family claimed that their cat had been “playful” when it swiped at the carrier’s hand as he was pushing mail through the slot. The mother insisted that the cat Lana, who the children playfully call Lana Banana,
was “really docile, I can pick her up like a baby and she won’t bat an eyelid.”
Rarely, we do hear of attack-cat owners who admit they have a problem. In 2007 the owner of Dipity took the news with resignation when she got the letter threatening to suspend her delivery service. “I can’t say I blame them for threatening to cut me off. I love Dipity to bits—she’s adorable—but I’d be the first to admit she’s a little terror,” she said. “All she wants to do is pick fights. When I took her to be neutered she tried to gouge lumps out of the vet and was hissing at all the dogs.”
And we can only hope that more will follow the example of the owner of Blackie, a cat who counted at least five postmen, one police officer, five paperboys, one takeaway driver, and one construction worker as his victims. In December 2006, she finally took responsibility:At the door to Ann Hogben’s home in Ramsgate, Kent, is a newly erected sign which simply reads: “Warning: Dangerous Cat—Has Attacked 13 People in the Last Six Years.”
The turning point came in the last few weeks when Blackie attacked a postman as he pushed envelopes through her letter box. Unaware of what lurked behind the door his latest victim was left with a series of open wounds.
“I came home and Blackie was sitting there like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but I knew something was wrong because he had blood on his claws.”
Animals Behaving Badly Page 9
