Saturday 20 June 2009

In touch with your inner wolf

Gail has been reading me extracts from an interesting book this week. It's called 'The Philosopher and the Wolf'. It's written by a man called Mark Rowlands,  a philosophy lecturer, who buys a wolf cub and whose life for the next eleven years is dominated by his lupine acquisition. All you dogs out there, take my advice and make sure your humans buy a copy of this book immediately. 

Why so? 

Well, put simply, this wolf will make you look good. Really really good. Because it will entirely re-calibrate your human's idea of what it means for a pet animal to misbehave.

Well, that is, unless you too did $500 worth of damage to the air conditioning system within ten minutes of entering your new home as a puppy. And in the subsequent few days engaged in "...destruction of all furniture and carpets, with a soiling option also available for the latter..."

Or maybe, like Brenin the wolf,  you regularly wake your owner by dropping a dead bird on his face as dawn breaks. Perhaps you also think that 'playing' with a dog involves seizing it by the neck, pinning it to the ground and then shaking it violently back and forth. Or do you like to practice a little feng shui by attempting to drag your favourite armchair out into the garden, and then wrecking it when you find it will not fit through the door frame? 

Yes, it seems, the pattern of daily life with a wolf includes all these activities and much more besides. 

So, fellow pups, if you have committed some petty crime this week - stolen a piece of cake perhaps, or barked too loudly at the postman - and your human has taken it badly and you feel they need to get things in perspective, then, well, use your computer skills, check out the credit card number and get ordering on Amazon right now....

10 comments:

Stella said...

Hello, Hamish!

It sounds like an interesting book. My Mom always wonders about highly destructive dogs and why they are that way. The dog in the book, though, is a wild animal so perhaps he is angry about missing his wild life and thats why he is naughty. Who knows?

I hope you are having a nice weekend.

Kisses,
Stella

Martha said...

Hi Hamish

Yes that sounds like a very interesting book. What interests our mum more is why someone decides to share their home with a wolf! She wonders if they think it will just become like a pet dog!
Certainly destructive behaviour can be common in puppies so perhaps with the wolf it was just a phase too!
That certainly was a very understanding human who shared his home!
Thankfully neither of us, to date, has shown any signs of being destructive. So paws crossed that continues!
The unconditional love becomes more difficult when house and home are being destroyed!
Have a good weekend Hamish.

love
Martha & Bailey xx

Stella said...

Ah, Hamish . . .would you ask Gail if she would contact me at letoile@arvig.net ? I have a question for her.

Thanks,

Jo, Stella's Mom

Unknown said...

WOW! I guess this makes me an angel!

That book looks very interesting - we have a friend who's crazy about wolves - this could be the perfect birthday present!

Your pal,

Petey

Maxmom said...

Hi there Hamish
Thanks for the recommendation; we'll get Mom to look out for it.
Enjoy your reading.
Lotsaluv and licks
Max and the whole clan in SA

Rocky Creek Scotties and Rocky Creek Ramblings said...

Sounds good - our peeps will have to check it out.

XOXO
Lilly, Piper, Carrleigh and Java

Rufus and Indie said...

A wolf? UAU! We will try to find one copy!
Kisses
Rufus and Indie

TwoSpecialWires said...

We have a feeling that our gramma needs to read this book so she can get a different perspective on her two little Yorkies. But we may need to preview it first, and we're not convinced it's would be good summer holiday reading material. It wouldn't tempt us to do naughty things while at Gramma's, would it?

Jake and Fergs

Unknown said...

Hamish!

Be sure to visit my blog - you're in the midst of a big adventure!

Your pal,

Petey

Anonymous said...

hi hamish!

being fairly new to the dogs with blogs community (and, well, yeah - pretty new to life in general, actually, since i'm not even 4 months old yet), i spend a lot of time visiting other dogs' blogs, to get to know them a bit.

the book you're telling us about sounds VERY interesting, and i'm going to "borrow" my human's credit card and order a copy of it as soon as my human falls asleep tonight!

i'll be coming back to your blog to read about you, and look at the beautiful photos, but now i must go have my evening kibble!

tailwags,
sienna