Living with an excellent view of Lake Nipissing and the walking trail along the beach, I see a daily panorama of people, pets, bicycles, and electrified transporters. There are, no doubt, many and various stories out there as people walk their fur babies, listen to their ear buds, tug on leashes, exclaim at the baby ducklings, or even miss sunsets while staring at their cell phones.
Then on June 5, there was an early-morning uproar. I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. A man was yelling at his black Lab – waking, I am certain, half the people in the condo. The swimming dog completely ignored his master. Off-leash, the Lab, true to its heritage, was bent on catching and then, I presume eating (or offering the body to its yelling master) the mallard ducklings or Mrs Mallard. Monsieur Mallard had decamped, wanting nothing to do with this four-legged beast.
The hen mallard, feigning injury and quacking, lured the black Lab farther from the ducklings, out into deeper water, staying just out of reach of those snapping teeth. I, the innocent bystander, began cheering, silently, for the duck. Having read stories about raccoons luring beagle hounds out into deep water and then turning on them, pushing the dog’s head underwater, and drowning the beast, I wondered if the mallard was thinking of the same thing.
With all the yelling from shore and exhaustion from swimming after the duck, the Lab finally gave up and turned around. No sooner did the chase end than the hen mallard swam after the dog, quacking and threatening to bite (do ducks bite?) the dog’s tail. The dog was scolded and leashed. Quiet returned to the 7 a.m. waterfront.
Then the following day, June 6, a woman let her black Lab off leash, and it jumped into the water after other ducklings and their mother mallard. The woman did not have the good sense to call the dog back but let it pursue the waterfowl as Labs are wont to do.
One little ducking did not yet recognize the imminent danger of a wolf in Lab’s clothing. Despite the disaster to her family, the hen tried to lead the Lab out into the lake. This Lab gave up and again the duck now chased after the dog, threatening to bite its tail. The dog reached shore safely, shook the water from its hide, and joined its master, still unleashed, un-scolded, without reprimand, on their pleasant morning walk.
Did the woman not think the duck family would be in dismay at the loss of a member? Did she even care? Obviously not, the same care and concern she had for the city bylaw about leashing dogs. And cats. It states, "No owner of a cat shall allow or permit the cat to be at large or of which he or she is the registered owner to trespass on private property whether on a leash or not unless permission for said trespass is first obtained from the property owner."
Then on June 8, it was Panthers 3 - Canducks 0, but I digress.
Okay, okay, it was only a duckling, only a couple of Labs, only a couple of scofflaws. You may have surmised where this is taking me, but I wondered what would these adults have done raising human babies instead of fur babies? I know we don’t put our kids on leashes, but we do train them, give them personal examples of acceptable behaviour, and put diapers on them so we don’t have to poop scoop after them on walks along the waterfront.
It is, I suppose, a matter of taking responsibility for your actions or lack thereof. If you are incapable of owning, training (educating), and being responsible for a pet, should you even consider taking on the responsibility of raising children? Combining both at the same time can, and often does, have great results. Other times, not so much. And this depends perhaps more on the adult in the room than on the pet or child.
It also may involve genetics, because some version of the old canine gene that came with trying to domesticate wolves, led to the black labradors being retrievers of mallards. We even tried to get poodles to find truffles, but they destained that work. How strong was that old hunting/retrieving gene on those mornings when the dogs could not resist attacking the mallards?
How strong are our genes in causing us to revert, not to wolves, but to our old survival instincts in refusing to conform to social laws that have nothing to do with gathering or catching food, fighting for survival or hunting territory, or selecting suitable mates for rearing children that will be our guardians in our old age? If the dogs can suddenly change, does genetic behavior explain our madness in attacking each other in seemingly random acts like drive-by shootings?
On the 80th anniversary of the D-day landing in the Second World War, we might pause to consider our genetic behaviours. After all, one of the madnesses that drove the Nazis was the desire to create a pure genetic pool of Ayrian bloodlines (Mengele), because they believed they were genetically superior to others. How much of that thinking is surfacing again in the extreme right – all around the world? Gaza, Ukraine, the US, Canada?
I don’t know – maybe I just like ducks more than dogs – but those scofflaws the other day caused me to think about our society and if this is an indication of where we are headed. Just saying.
