EVERY TIME WE LOWER the drawbridge and stroll outside of the ZenDogverse to take a look around, the world is burning, people are getting away with murder, and I repeatedly find myself thinking, Is it really that fucking hard to be nice to people?
Do you ever think that too?
I know. It’s such a simplistic response to the problems of a weary world. What a child might say. But maybe it is that simple. Maybe it needs to be that simple. Crop it down so it fits on a goddamn bumper sticker: Just Be Nice.
Immature? Ineffective? “Oh, that’s cute, keep dreaming.”?
Well, hang on just a second. Because guess what?
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Dogs figured it out.
Those dumb dogs decided to try being friendly to Humans, and holy shit did that ever turn out great.
For them as well as us.
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We can learn a lot from Canis familiaris.
I did, when I watched the documentary, “Inside the Mind of a Dog.” There was a part in there that made me rewind a few times.
It goes like this: Thousands of years ago, Humans got so good at hunting, most other large predators became extinct. Bears and wolves survived. Bears headed for cover in the mountains, but Canis lupus did something different.
About 25,000 years ago, they started following us around, attracted to the delicious leftovers (and garbage, there’s always been the garbage) that we would leave behind while traveling from cave to hut to estate with a four-car garage and infinity pool.
Dogs evolved small muscles that allow them to show the whites of their eyes in a way that really, formerly, only Humans could do, which helped manipulate us to see them as endearing, the same response we have to Human babies, and babies have to parents. It’s how we know who’s cool. Now dogs can look up at us the same way, and we can’t help but to give them a treat.
It is fascinating to me that wolves and dogs (every dog has 99.9% of the same DNA as wolves) have used being nice as a successful survival strategy. Cannot underscore that point enough:
Dogs have used Being Nice as a Successful Survival Strategy.
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Quote from the documentary:
A new type of friendliness evolved.
‘Survival of the friendliest’ is really the most successful evolutionary strategy that has been identified. And it is counter to ‘survival of the fittest.’
It is not at all that being a big, bad alpha makes you superior. And in fact, if anything, being dominant is super-costly and any species that evolves a new type of friendliness that leads to new forms of cooperation just absolutely does gangbusters in the game of life.
- Dr. Brian Hare, Ph.D. - Founder, Duke University Canine Cognition Center
In the same way that flowers and bees have a friendly relationship that benefits both wildly—as well as us, and in the same way emperor penguins befriend their entire population in order to snuggle and survive at the South Pole, dogs have forged a friendship with us Human Beings. Dr. Brian Hare sums it up.
“Friendliness wins,” declares Hare. “It wins again and again in life.”
I have to agree. In that documentary, one of the dogs had actually worn braces for a while to correct an overbite. Be a good dog and get free, modern dental care.
Mind-blowing.
There’s been a bear sighted in our Colorado neighborhood recently, sniffing around for garbage and the delicacy we call, birdfeeders.
Perhaps the bears have been peering down from the mountains, seeing the Mobile Dog Washing Service truck pull up in front of comfortable 4-bedroom house in the suburbs, and two people hop out, jog inside, and give a couple pooches a nice, warm, personal bath.
The bears look at each other.
Why didn’t we think of that?
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At our house, we don’t have a family. We have, The Pack. It consists of three people and two dogs who sleep on the beds with us and occasionally get a little piece of something off our plate. (Dogs aren’t garbage disposals.)
Canis sought us out and became our friend. We don’t let deer or badgers into the house to live with us, but sometimes my foot becomes my dog’s pillow in the middle of the night. Shasta once woke me up by snoring in my ear.
Now, wherever we go, so go the dogs.
Friendliness.
Wildly successful survival strategy.
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Dogs Know How to Say Thank You ~
Dogs have returned the favor a hundred-fold.
Healthy dogs love us unconditionally and keep us company. That right there is worth the price of admission, but they do so much more.
Dogs sniff for explosives. Dogs find unconscious people trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings. Dogs have smelled cancer in Humans and saved their lives.
Dogs see for the blind, calm those with nightmares, and help isolated people find themselves in the world again. They might even give you a reason not to put a gun in your mouth.
I’ve met a handful of dogs who could bring me a beer from the fridge.
Is it a coincidence, or is it cosmic synchronicity that the words “GOD” and “DOG” are palindromes?
And bless their fucking hearts, they could not give a shit about money. Ergo, canine corruption cannot exist.
Well, okay, we could hold treats and walks over their heads, but you know what I mean. And without opposable thumbs, they can’t stab you in the back literally, so they don’t think about it metaphorically.
Incorruptible.
Good dog.
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What’s the point? The point is that I wish more people outside of the ZenDogverse would act like dogs.
Don’t worry. The drawbridge is down and we’re heading back inside to work on the next article. Something with more zing and pizzazz. Probably about golf, or getting drunk, or the How-To L.AS Life Hack piece about defeating red light citations with proof that it works every time.
See you then.
Raise the drawbridge.
THE END_
More like this…
This is EXACTLY what I tell people when the topic comes up. I think it really IS that simple: “Just be nice.” Imagine if everyone followed this philosophy? So many social ills could be fixed.
And it’s about empathy, too.
Come on, people!
Well said