Tuesday, August 21, 2007

A Few Reasons Why Wolves Are Easier To Get Along with Than Humans




my good friends, canis lupus

  • Wolves tend to live in forests with lots of room and not in shared living situations with four other roommates and one bathroom. Really, don't you think wolves can go the bathroom whenever and wherever they want anyways?
  • I am a human raised by wolves and I have better manners than many wolves raised by humans. It was a sad day indeed when some well-intentioned missionaries caught up with me in the forest preserves outside the Chicago suburbs. Until then my only contact with humans had been LARP (those engaged in live-action role playing games) and the occasional klansman, but suddenly there I was in Catholic school. Walking upright no less.
  • Ranchers taint sheep carcasses with lithium to teach those wolves a nasty lesson. They bite in and get sick sick sick. But the point is, wolves are well-medicated. They do not take out their personal problems on, say, their roommates. Also, if memory serves, wolves do not take hour long showers in the morning when other people also have to go to work.
  • People often pretend to be wolves when really they are just an exquisite, exotic kind of sheep. You bite in, they make you sick. Wolves, however, are just wolves. They remain fairly predictable in that they do wolfish things in wolfish ways.
  • A lot of people go haywire around the time of the full moon and act odd in strange ways. For example they might be extra grouchy to their, say, roommates and yell and pout that they want to be left alone even though they are in the middle of the common area and have a very large bedroom at their disposal where they can be very, very alone whenever they feel like it. It is not like anyone is stopping them. Wolves, on the other hand, just get together in their social groups and enjoy a good howl.
  • Wolves clearly have a better sense of style than some humans. Their sleek gray coats glisten in the moonlight in a way that horrid sweat pants never will.
  • Wolves do not throw away their roommate's food during manic cleaning sprees because the, say, perfectly good milk is one day past the 'enjoy by' date. Don't think you can convince me that wolves care about these sorts of things. They don't. I used to live with them, remember?
  • The dog, by the way, is not even its own species. It is a subspecies of the wolf. How's that for man's best friend?
  • Wolves do pool their resources to hunt as a group.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Is this really true about you? It is so interesting to think about it. I wonder how many children become feral every year. I bet lots of the Haiti victims are becoming feral after losing their parents and being forced to survive on their own. It is a tough experience, but very fascinating.

I definitely find animals easier to get along with as well, because humans inflict so much unnecessary cruelty onto each other. Sadly, the smarter animals get, the more likely they are to engage in sociopathic activities.