Symbiosis

Symbiosis

It's been a few thousand years since the first wolves lost their fear of humans and began to hang around human campsites and evolve into dogs. Humans and dogs are two highly intelligent species who quickly realized they had something to offer each other, and they began to develop a symbiotic relationship. The dogs helped with hunting and security, and the humans made finding food much easier for the dogs. And they became so very devoted to each other.

Much as I try to discourage tourists from trying to adopt strays from Cuba (it just isn't very practical), there is almost an uncontrollable demand for finding, vetting, and shipping Cuban homeless dogs to other countries. I guess that demand is fueled by the interdependence of the two species and a resulting mutual love. Getting a dog through a visit to a local shelter is easier, cheaper, less risky, and offers more choice. But people come back home from Cuba with a sympathetic ache in their hearts for that little ownerless dog who hung around the tropical resort where they spent their vacation.

Any dog owner has to know that love, that devotion, and that mutual attachment. As I sit here writing in my study, I face on the opposite wall 9 pictures hanging of my dogs. And that gallery doesn't include two pictures of recent family dogs yet to be framed. The first was Annie, a Beagle who took my heart in no time flat. She would climb into my lap as I settled in to watch some TV, and if I didn't move all evening, she wouldn't either. We couldn't talk with each other but we surely communicated those wonderful evenings. Boy, a handsome German Shepherd, is up there too. He lived in a fenced 2 acre yard at our farm, and he had a heated dog house. But if we were outside the house, he was always with us. I often sat on the top porch stair with him sitting next to me--my arm around his big strong body. We were communicating too.

I know what those tourists feel when they see the sweet little resort hangers-on. It's like love at first sight, and it can change your life in an instant. It's like a mother's love for her child or a musician's involvement with his music, or an artist's connection with his work.

One of the drawbacks to having dogs and cats as pets is they don't last forever. Sooner or later you have to say goodbye to them. We've done that many times, and it's never easy. But even those goodbyes don't sever the connection. Annie, Boy, Yo-yo, recipients and givers of so much love are here with me today, even years after our last goodbyes.

All in all, it's an experience worth having. I know that if I always have at least one such companion in my life, I cannot feel lonely or unloved.

Les Inglis