Years
ago, when our first Great Dane was two years old, we learned of
a Great Dane pup that needed rescuing. We never knew what the puppy's owners were struggling with, but we saw the need for
a new home for the puppy when we went to their apartment and found
the puppy chained to the handle of a kitchen cupboard, barely able reach its
food and water.
The
people were relieved to have us take that dog off their hands. We named her Scarlet.
That
little puppy grew up to be the happiest, sweetest dog you could ever
know. She clearly was connected to us in every great doggie way. But Scarlet had an even greater devotion to our other dog. Watching those two
dogs play together was a great joy. Their emotional connection was
deep and obvious.
Eventually,
the inevitable happened, and our first Dane died at the age of 10. Scarlet, now 8, was so profoundly depressed that she couldn't
function in any way. She stopped eating, drinking, sleeping, playing. The dog who lived to run wouldn't even walk. Desperate, we took her to the vet.
 |
| My wife's sketch of Scarlet with her nose tucked under her paw |
After examining her for a few minutes, the vet said, “I hate to tell you this, but it appears that your dog is dying of grief.”
We
asked, “Is there anything we can do?”
He
said, “I can't promise it will save her, but I think your best hope
is to get another dog as soon as possible.”
We
immediately went dog shopping and brought home another puppy.
The
effect on our depressed dog was slow, but she began to get better. She began drinking and
eating. Eventually, she rediscovered play. She went on to live until
the age of 13, the oldest Great Dane our vet had ever seen.
As
all pet owners know, the emotional lives of animals are as real as
the emotional lives of people. Yes, people might be more complicated,
but our emotions are no more profound. When you watch dogs play, it
is obvious that their joy is just as joyful as that of any human. And
when you watch a dog dying of grief, you can't deny that it is their depression that's killing them. Animals under severe stress sometimes give up and die just like humans do.
Scientists
studying animals – and the general media that reports on them –
made another small step forward into the obvious this week as Time
Magazine did a story on Animal Grief. (Note that you have to be a subscriber to read the entire article.) The article reports on
scientists who've studied how various species
deal with the death of their own. They looked at elephants and apes and dolphins and crows and horses and, of course, dogs and cats, and they found
significant and unmistakable signs of serious grief in the animal
world. Many species even have complex rituals they enact when one of
their own dies.
I've
written about animal intelligence and emotion before:
This new
article in Time Magazine prompts me to visit the subject again.
Scientists are coming around. They've slowed down their knee-jerk
impulse to label our observations of animal emotion and animal
intelligence as anthropomorphizing, the unfounded attachment of human
qualities to animals.
Some
day, the experts will finally recognize what the rest of us have
always known. Animals have lives that are nearly as rich and full of
complex behaviors and social structures as the lives of people. (It
seems that some of the time, some animals have richer and fuller
lives than some people!)
People
are clever, and we are lucky enough to have opposable
thumbs, which led to specialized brain development (imagine what
dolphins might do with opposable thumbs!), but it's arrogant to think
that our suffering when one of us dies is greater than the suffering
animals endure when their loved ones die. If your grief is powerful enough to kill you, it's all powerful, regardless of what species you belong to.
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