Contents

Also by Desmond Morris

The Biology of Art

Men and Snakes (co-author)

Men and Apes (co-author)

Men and Pandas (co-author)

The Mammals: A Guide to the Living Species

Primate Ethology (editor)

The Naked Ape

The Human Zoo

Patterns of Reproductive Behaviour

Intimate Behaviour

Manwatching

Gestures (co-author)

Animal Days

The Soccer Tribe

Inrock (fiction)

The Book of Ages

The Art of Ancient Cyprus

Bodywatching

The Illustrated Naked Ape

Catwatching

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Text copyright © Desmond Morris 1986
Illustrations copyright © Jonathan Cape Ltd 1986

Desmond Morris has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published by Jonathan Cape in 1986

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Introduction

In the whole of human history only two kinds of animals have been allowed the freedom of our homes: the cat and the dog. It is true that in earlier times farm animals were often brought into the home at night for security, but they were always penned or tethered. It is also true that in more recent times a wide variety of pet species have been kept inside our houses – fish in tanks, birds in cages, reptiles in vivaria – but all of these have been captives, separated from us by glass or wire or bars. Only cats and dogs have been permitted to wander from room to room and to come and go almost as they please. With them we have a special relationship, an ancient contract with quite specific terms of agreement.

Sadly, these terms have often been broken, and nearly always by us. It is a sobering thought that cats and dogs are more loyal, trustworthy and reliable than human beings. Very occasionally they turn on us, scratch us or bite us, or run away and leave us, but when this happens there is usually a piece of human stupidity or cruelty lurking in the background to provide a cause. For most of the time they unswervingly fulfil their half of the age-old bargain we have struck with them, and shame us by their conduct.

The contract that was drawn up between man and dog is over 10,000 years old. Had it been written down, it would have stated that if the dog performs certain tasks for us, we in return will provide it with food and water, and with shelter, companionship and care. The tasks it has been asked to carry out have been many and varied. Dogs have been required to guard our homes, protect our persons, aid our hunts, destroy our vermin, and pull our sledges. In more specialized roles, they have been trained to collect birds’ eggs in their mouths without breaking the shells, locate truffles, sniff out drugs at airports, guide the blind, rescue avalanche victims, track down escaped criminals, run races, travel in space, act in films and compete as show dogs.

Occasionally the faithful dog has been unwittingly reduced to a human level of barbaric conduct. Today we think of the ‘dogs of war’ as human mercenaries – men who enjoy the macho thrill of maiming and killing with special weapons. But originally they were real dogs, trained to attack the front lines of an enemy army. Shakespeare is referring to this when he makes Mark Antony call out, ‘Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war’. The ancient Gauls retaliated by sending in armoured dogs, equipped with heavy collars bristling with razor-sharp knives. These terrifying animals, rushing and leaping at the Roman cavalry, tore the legs of their horses to shreds.

Regrettably, fighting dogs are still with us today. Although officially outlawed, pit fights between specially trained animals remain an excuse for gambling and for the savage entertainment of the more bloodthirsty elements of society. These contests have been forced to go underground but they have by no means been eliminated.

In some Eastern countries dogs are considered a food delicacy, but this has never been one of their major roles, and is steadily becoming less common. It appears to have been most widespread in China, where the name of the edible dog was the same as the slang word for food: chow. In most regions, however, dogs escaped the pot because they had so many other, more important uses.

One of the unfortunate side-effects of the great popularity of dogs in all human societies was the growth of the stray dog population. In some countries this canine surplus established itself as a disease-ridden scavenging horde that gave all dogs a bad name. The Pariah Dogs of the Middle East, in particular, turned human friendship into revulsion. In the doctrines of several religions the dog became ‘unclean’. Over the years the very word became a term of contempt: dirty dog, filthy cur, pig-dog and dogsbody. Even today, in some ethnic groups, children learn the ancient tradition of despising the dog. The strongest survival of this attitude is found in Muslim cultures. Re-education in schools has proved an uphill struggle.

In the West a happier development has occurred. As the earlier tasks set for the dog have faded in importance, a new role has emerged. The working dog has been largely replaced by the pet dog. True, working dogs still thrive in a number of their old capacities, but they are now greatly outnumbered by the new ‘companion dogs’. This is closely linked with the spread of urban and suburban man, and the growth of great cities. In this context there are few tasks for the working dog to perform, but the bond between man and dog is so strong that the complete loss of the canine element in human family life could not be contemplated. As a result, since the Industrial Revolution, many new breeds have been refined. Pedigree standards have been established and dog shows organized. The competitive showing of pedigree breeds has become big business.

At the same time, thousands of mongrel dogs have appeared on the scene. Owners simply wanting a faithful, friendly companion have frequently scorned the highly specialized pedigree breeds, criticizing them as being too artificial, their particular features and qualities taken to worrying extremes, their inbreeding supposedly making them difficult to deal with. The top dog-breeders have denied this and insisted that only with expensive, exclusive dogs is sufficient care taken of the animal’s needs. To these breeders, the mongrel-keepers are the thin edge of the wedge that leads to dog neglect, to uncared-for-strays, to fouling public places and giving dogs a bad name. If all dogs were high-born pedigrees, they argue, anti-dog feelings would vanish and society would value their canine companions as the precious objects which they are.

There is some truth in both viewpoints. Some pedigree breeds have been taken too far, so that the dogs in question now suffer regularly from physical complaints. Dogs with very short legs and very long bodies are prone to slipped discs. Those with flattened faces suffer from breathing difficulties. Others have eye troubles or hip troubles. The people concerned with these suspect breeds tend to keep quiet about the shortcomings that have multiplied over the years, for fear that their particular breed will lose its popularity. This is a pity, as is the trend towards greater and greater exaggeration. Only a hundred years ago, for example, the Bulldog was a comparatively long-legged animal, and the Dachshund had a much shorter body. These are only two of the many breeds where a feature has been magnified little by little until it has caused the ‘refined’ dogs serious trouble. It would be an easy matter to breed these and other such dogs back – a little way at least – to resemble the kinds of animals they were in earlier centuries, when they were still capable of acting as proper working dogs. They would lose none of their charm and would gain immeasurably in health and fitness. In this way the world of the pedigree dog could quickly put its house in order.

The world of the mongrel is more of a problem. It is true that many thousands of mongrel-owners treat their pets with enormous care and respect, but because these animals are of so little commercial value they are also frequently abused. Litters of puppies are sold off cheaply or given away and are then often maltreated or abandoned. Each year London’s Battersea Dogs’ Home takes in about 20,000 unwanted strays (the figure for 1985 was 19,889, of which 76 per cent were mongrels). And that is just one establishment. Many of these dogs are found new homes, but many more have to be killed. It has been estimated that, in the British Isles alone, 2,000 dogs have to be destroyed every day. It is hard to see how to alter this situation by direct action. The only hope for the future seems to be a general improvement in social attitudes towards animal welfare.

An additional cross which dogs must bear is having to act as the recipients of a great deal of human aggression and scientific curiosity. On both counts, being a dog means suffering pain. Humans are notorious for redirecting their aggression down the social order. The boss insults his aides, they shout at their underlings, the underlings then shout at their underlings, and so on, down to the very bottom of the social ladder – where sits the trusting dog. When a dog is kicked and whipped it is hard for it to understand that the rough treatment it is receiving may have begun as a sarcastic phrase in some remote boardroom, which then reverberated down the ranks, gaining momentum all the way, until it ended in the dog’s yelping agony. Some of the punishments that are meted out to dogs after travelling this route are hard to credit. In Britain alone, the RSPCA receives about 40,000 complaints of cruelty to dogs each year.

Equally hard to believe are some of the cruelties performed in the name of scientific research. The excuse for breaking the canine contract in such instances is that the pain inflicted is helping us to advance the sum of human knowledge. We may be betraying the trust dogs put in us, as members of their ‘packs’, but we can justify this by publishing learned papers of our findings. In reality, the vast majority of all painful experiments carried out on long-suffering dogs fail to advance human knowledge in any appreciable way. In the early days of physiology, medicine, and zoology, there may have been some value in the lessons that were learnt, but today this is rarely the case. The dog should be left in peace, but this is unlikely to happen.

This brings me to the primary purpose of writing Dogwatching, which is to demonstrate that by simple, direct observation, or by observational experiments which cause the dogs involved no harm, it is possible to understand and appreciate these remarkable animals in great and surprising detail. They have so much to offer us. They are playful companions when we are in the mood for fun; they are loving companions when we are lonely or depressed; they are health-giving companions when they stir us into taking long walks; they are calming companions when we become agitated, apprehensive or tense; and they still carry out their age-old duties of alerting us to intruders in our homes and protecting us from attack – to mention only two of their surviving work-roles.

Those disturbed individuals who pour our hatred for dogs are missing a great deal. And those who are merely disinterested are also losing out on an amazingly rewarding man/animal relationship. Since such people will almost certainly ignore this book, they will be unaware of an intriguing fact: people who keep dogs (or cats, for that matter) live longer on average than those who do not. This is not some kind of pro-canine campaigning fantasy. It is a simple medical fact that the calming influence of the company of a friendly pet animal reduces blood pressure and therefore the risk of heart attack. To stroke a cat, pat a dog or cuddle any sort of furry pet has a de-stressing influence that goes directly to the root of many of today’s cultural ailments. Most of us suffer from too much tension and stress in the hustle of modern urban living, where minute-by-minute considerations are frequently complex and demand a whole range of conflicting compromises. By contrast, the friendly contact of a pet dog or cat serves to remind us of the survival of simple, direct innocence even inside the dizzy whirlpool we refer to as advanced civilization.

Unfortunately, even those who benefit from this animal relationship frequently fail to realize what a fascinating animal the dog really is. It is so familiar to us all that we start to take it for granted. If we do ask questions about the dog: how sensitive is its nose? can it see colours? how does it find its way home when lost? why does it wag its tail when greeting us? why does it have such a strange sex life? … and so on, we often shrug and then move on to something else, without ever bothering to find out the answers. If we do make an effort, we discover that the routine dog books tend to skip over the most basic questions and concentrate instead on such subjects as dog-grooming, feeding, veterinary care and the distinguishing characteristics of the several hundred breeds that now exist. This is all useful information, but we still want to know why some dogs howl more than others, and why they all bark so much, and why dogs behave in the way that they do. I have therefore set out to answer such key questions in a series of short, simple answers. By laying out the text in this manner I hope that you will be able to use the book to deal with each question that comes up in your human/dog relationship, and also that, by browsing through it, you will increase your appreciation of the extraordinary end-product of canine evolution that leaps up to greet you every time you return home and open your front door.

The Dog

Why is the dog so special? What is it about the canine personality that has singled this animal out from all the 4,236 species of non-human mammals to be man’s closest companion? The answer is one that some people may find disturbing, for ‘man’s best friend’ is, in reality, a wolf in dog’s clothing. And it is the wolf’s personality that is the key to understanding our strong bond with the dog.

The idea that all our dogs, from scruffy mongrels to haughty show champions, from mangy strays to perfect pedigrees, and from tiny Chihuahuas to gigantic Great Danes, are nothing more or less than domesticated wolves is, for some, a little hard to swallow. The thought upsets them because of the long tradition of horror stories connected with the wild wolf. There is the savage wolf and the man-eating wolf, the werewolf and the big bad wolf. Scarcely a kind word anywhere for this magnificent creature until we come to the modern, objective studies of the last few decades. So it is hard to blame people for rejecting out of hand the suggestion that the cheerful, harmless little pooch sitting on the rug, looking up at them with big friendly eyes, is really a member of the same species as the mighty wolf. But this is something we must accept, not just because it is true, but because it is the only way to comprehend the behaviour of the domestic dog and to appreciate why it is that dogs rather than, say, monkeys, bears or racoons, have become man’s best friend.