Part 14 (1/2)
In these contrived setups, the dogs acted with interest and devotion, but not as though there were an emergency. Dogs frequently approached their owners, and sometimes pawed or nuzzled these seeming victims, now silent and unresponsive (in the heart attack case) or crying out for help (in the bookcase scenario). Other dogs, though, took the opportunity to roam around in the vicinity, wandering and sniffing the gra.s.s or the floor of the room. In only a very few cases did a dog vocalize-which might serve to get someone's attention-or approach the bystander who might be able to help. The only dog who touched the bystander was a toy poodle. The poodle leaped into the bystander's lap and settled down for a nap.
In other words, not a single dog did anything that remotely helped their owners out of their predicaments. The conclusion one has to take from this is that dogs simply do not naturally recognize or react to an emergency situation-one that could lead to danger or death.
A killjoy conclusion? Hardly. If dogs lack the concepts emergency emergency and and death death this is not to their discredit. One might as well ask a dog if he understands this is not to their discredit. One might as well ask a dog if he understands bicycles bicycles and and mousetraps mousetraps and then censure him for responding with a puzzled tilt of the head. A human child is also naive to these concepts: an infant has to be screamed at as he zeros in on an open electrical outlet; a two-year-old who saw someone hurt would likely do little but cry. They will be and then censure him for responding with a puzzled tilt of the head. A human child is also naive to these concepts: an infant has to be screamed at as he zeros in on an open electrical outlet; a two-year-old who saw someone hurt would likely do little but cry. They will be taught taught to understand emergency situations-and then the concept of death. So too are some dogs trained, for instance, to alert a deaf companion to the sound of an emergency device, such as a smoke alarm. The teaching of children is explicit, with some procedural elements- to understand emergency situations-and then the concept of death. So too are some dogs trained, for instance, to alert a deaf companion to the sound of an emergency device, such as a smoke alarm. The teaching of children is explicit, with some procedural elements-If you hear this alarm, get Mommy; the dogs' training is entirely reinforced procedure. the dogs' training is entirely reinforced procedure.
What the dogs seem to know is when an unusual unusual situation occurs. They are masters of identifying the usual in the world you share with them. You often act in reliable ways: in your own home, you move from room to room, spending long pauses in armchairs and in front of refrigerators; you talk to them; you talk to other people; you eat, sleep, disappear for long stretches into the bathroom; and so on. The environment is fairly reliable, too: it is neither too hot nor too cold; there is no person in the house apart from the ones who have come in the front door; water is not pooling in the living room; smoke is not drifting in the hallway. From that knowledge of the usual world comes some acknowledgment of the unusual fact of someone's odd behavior when injured, or of the dogs' own inability to act as they customarily can. situation occurs. They are masters of identifying the usual in the world you share with them. You often act in reliable ways: in your own home, you move from room to room, spending long pauses in armchairs and in front of refrigerators; you talk to them; you talk to other people; you eat, sleep, disappear for long stretches into the bathroom; and so on. The environment is fairly reliable, too: it is neither too hot nor too cold; there is no person in the house apart from the ones who have come in the front door; water is not pooling in the living room; smoke is not drifting in the hallway. From that knowledge of the usual world comes some acknowledgment of the unusual fact of someone's odd behavior when injured, or of the dogs' own inability to act as they customarily can.
More than once Pumpernickel got herself in dire straits (once, trapped on a catwalk heading off a building edge; another time, her leash stuck in the elevator doors as the car began to move). I was amazed at how unfazed she appeared-especially as contrasted with my own alarm. It was never she who got herself out of the fix. I believe that I was more worried about her well-being than she was about mine. Still, much of my well-being hinged on her-not on her knowing how to fix dilemmas, great or small, in my life, but rather on her unremitting cheer and constant companions.h.i.+p.
II.
WHAT IT IS LIKE.
In our attempt to get inside of a dog, we gather small facts about their sensory capacities and build large inferences upon them. One inference is to the experience of the dog: what it actually feels like feels like to be a dog; what his experience of the world is. This a.s.sumes, of course, that the world is to be a dog; what his experience of the world is. This a.s.sumes, of course, that the world is like like anything to a dog. Perhaps surprisingly, in philosophical and scientific circles there is a bit of debate about this. anything to a dog. Perhaps surprisingly, in philosophical and scientific circles there is a bit of debate about this.
Thirty-five years ago, the philosopher Thomas Nagel began a long-running conversation in science and philosophy about the subjective experience of animals when he asked, ”What is it like to be a bat?” He chose for his thought experiment an animal whose almost unimaginable way of seeing had only recently been discovered: echolocation, the process of emitting high-frequency shouts and then listening for the sound being reflected back. How long the sound takes to bounce back, and how it is changed, gives the bat a map of where all the objects are in the local environment. To get a rough sense of what this might be like, imagine lying in a dark room at night and wondering if someone is standing at your doorway. Sure, you could resolve the question by turning on the light. Or, bat-like, you could hurdle a tennis ball at the doorway and see if (a) the ball comes back toward you or flies out of the room, and (b) if a grunt is heard at about the time the ball arrives at the threshold. If you're very good, you might also use (c) how far the ball bounces back, to determine if the person is very tubby (in which case the ball loses most of its speed in his belly) or has washboard abs (which will reflect the ball nicely). Bats use (a) and (c), and in lieu of tennis b.a.l.l.s they use sound. And they do it constantly and rapidly, as quickly as we open our eyes and take in the visual scene in front of us.
This, appropriately, boggled Nagel's mind. He thought that the bat's vision, and thus the bat's life, are so wildly odd, so imponderable, that it is impossible to know what it is like to be that bat. He a.s.sumed that the bat experiences the world, but he believed that that experience is fundamentally subjective: whatever ”it is like,” it is that way only to that bat.
The trouble with his conclusion has to do with the imaginative leap that we do make every day. Nagel treated an inter interspecies difference as something wholly unlike an intra intra species difference. But we are perfectly happy to talk about ”what it is like” to be another human being. I do not know the particulars of another person's experience, but I know enough about the feeling of being human myself that I can draw an a.n.a.logy from my own experience to someone else's. I can imagine what the world is like to him by extrapolating from my own perception and transplanting it with him at its center. The more information I have about that person-physically, his life history, his behavior-the better my drawn a.n.a.logy will be. species difference. But we are perfectly happy to talk about ”what it is like” to be another human being. I do not know the particulars of another person's experience, but I know enough about the feeling of being human myself that I can draw an a.n.a.logy from my own experience to someone else's. I can imagine what the world is like to him by extrapolating from my own perception and transplanting it with him at its center. The more information I have about that person-physically, his life history, his behavior-the better my drawn a.n.a.logy will be.
So can we do this with dogs. The more information we have, the better the drawing will be. To this point, we have physical information (about their nervous systems, their sensory systems), historical knowledge (their evolutionary heritage, their developmental path from birth to adults), and a growing corpus of work about their behavior. In sum, we have a sketch of the dog umwelt. The parcel of scientific facts we have collected allows us to take an informed imaginative leap inside of a dog-to see what it is like to be a dog; what the world is like from a dog's point of view.
We have already seen that it is smelly; that it is well peopled with people. On further consideration, we can add: it is close to the ground; it is lickable. It either fits in the mouth or it doesn't. It is in the moment. It is full of details, fleeting, and fast. It is written all over their faces. It is probably nothing like what it is like to be us.
It is close to the ground ...
One of the most conspicuous features of the dog is one of the most conspicuously overlooked when contemplating their view of the world: their height. If you think that there is little difference between the world at the height of an average upright human and that at the height of an average upright dog-one to two feet-you are in for a surprise. Even putting aside for a moment the difference in sound and smell close to the ground, being at a different height has profound consequences.
Few dogs are human-height. They are human-knee height. One might even say they are often underfoot. underfoot. We are magnificently obtuse when it comes to imagining even the simple fact of their being less than half our height. Intellectually we know that dogs are not at our height, yet we set up interactions such that the height difference is a constant problem. We put things ”out of reach” of dogs, only to be frustrated by their attempts to get them. Even knowing that dogs like greeting us at eye level, we typically do not bend down. Or, bending down just far enough to allow them to reach our faces with a leap, we may get annoyed when they then leap. We are magnificently obtuse when it comes to imagining even the simple fact of their being less than half our height. Intellectually we know that dogs are not at our height, yet we set up interactions such that the height difference is a constant problem. We put things ”out of reach” of dogs, only to be frustrated by their attempts to get them. Even knowing that dogs like greeting us at eye level, we typically do not bend down. Or, bending down just far enough to allow them to reach our faces with a leap, we may get annoyed when they then leap. Jumping up Jumping up is the direct result of desiring to get to something one needs to is the direct result of desiring to get to something one needs to jump up jump up to reach. to reach.
Scolded enough for jumping up, dogs happily find there is plenty of interest underfoot. There are, for instance, lots of feet. Smelly feet: the foot is a good source of our signature odors. We tend to sweat pedally when we are mentally taxed: stressed, or concentrating hard. Clumsy feet: sitting, we dangle them, but not with dexterity. They act as single units, with toes only existing as places between which extra odors may be discovered by a roving tongue.
If the foot smells so interesting, of course, then the way we treat them must be awfully frustrating: d.a.m.ned shoes. We cloister our odors. On the other hand, shoes left behind smell just like the person who had been in them, and they have the additional interest of carrying on their soles whatever you squis.h.i.+ly stepped in outside. Socks are equally good carriers of our odor, hence the gaping holes that regularly appear in socks left bedside. On examination, each hole has been lovingly poked by the incisors of a dog with a sock in her mouth.
Besides feet, at dog height the world is full of long skirts and trouser legs dancing with every footfall of their wearer. The tight whirling motions the warp of a pant leg presents to a dog's eye must be tantalizing. Between their sensitivity to motion and their investigatory mouths, it is no wonder one can find one's pants being nipped by the dog at the end of your leash.
The world closer to the ground is a more odoriferous one, for smells loiter and fester in the ground, while they distribute and disperse on the air. Sound travels differently along the ground, too: hence birds sing at tree height, while ground dwellers tend to use the earth to communicate mechanically. The vibration of a fan on the floor might perturb a dog nearby; likewise, loud sounds bounce more loudly off the floor into resting dog ears.
The artist Jana Sterbak tried to capture a dog's-eye view by rigging a video camera to a girdle worn by Stanley, her Jack Russell terrier, and recording his perambulations along a frozen river and through Venice, the ”city of doges” (pun probably intended). The result is a manic, jumbled rush of sights, the world akilter and the image never calm. At fourteen inches above the ground, Stanley's visual world is a glimpse of his olfactory world: what catches his olfactory interest he pursues in body and sight.
But by suiting up animals with critter-cams we are mostly getting an idea of their vantage vantage on the world, not their entire umwelt. With most if not all wild animals, only by taking such a vantage may we have any information about their world, their day: we can't keep up with a diving penguin as a camera strapped to its back can; only an inconspicuous camera could capture the tunnel building of a naked mole rat underground. To watch Stanley from the vantage of his back is to be surprised at the view. There is the temptation, though, to think that by capturing a picture of Stanley's day we have completed the imaginative exercise. It is but the beginning. on the world, not their entire umwelt. With most if not all wild animals, only by taking such a vantage may we have any information about their world, their day: we can't keep up with a diving penguin as a camera strapped to its back can; only an inconspicuous camera could capture the tunnel building of a naked mole rat underground. To watch Stanley from the vantage of his back is to be surprised at the view. There is the temptation, though, to think that by capturing a picture of Stanley's day we have completed the imaginative exercise. It is but the beginning.
... It is lickable ...