The comment posted by Julie to the recent entry "low sun, stovewood, and the next generation" struck quite a chord with me, particularly the part about the soulless person who seemed to think that animals were either to be eaten or enslaved. I have always been highly uncomfortable with the kind of dogsled racer who refers to his dogs as "power units" and treats them as cannon fodder for "his athletic career."
Although the syndrome is showing signs of breaking up, in the postmodern era we still have a substantial body of people who seem to think of animals as sophisticated machines or biological automata, incapable of thought or feeling. To me, to hold the position that mammals other than mankind have no souls is proof positive that the person holding that position is himself without any such accessory. That opinion, for millennia part and parcel of the judaeo-christian ethico-religious tradition, was enthusiastically taken over and advanced by the modern "religion of science."
Animals cannot speak, therefore they cannot think, so goes the argument. Words are indispensable to thought, they claim. And if feelings cannot be verbally expressed, then those, too, are open to question. Therefore animals don't feel, either. Very poor logic, but popular among the scientific fraternity. These attitudes have justified the exploitation and torture of animals by science and industry.
I'm not enough of an idealist to be an animal-rights activist or an ethical vegetarian. The natural world is set up in such a way that everything preys upon and eats everything else. Maybe I find that aesthetically or even morally displeasing, but that's the way it is set up; I didn't create it, and I cannot change it. So I eat my beef and chicken, preferably home-grown or locally-produced in a reasonably humane fashion; I hunt occasionally. I also breed and drive sleddogs, which is arguably exploitative, although the dogs seem to enjoy their work tremendously. If they were wandering around in the wild, their lives would be nasty, brutish and short. Dogs have chosen to dine at the tables of mankind, which means they must put up with the strange relationship which their commensalism entails, including being bred, confined, worked, and sometimes terminated by their human owners. Their choice is an evolutionary success thus far -- the domestic dog population far exceeds that of the wild canids.
Last year I discovered a poem by the Scottish poet Edwin Muir that greatly impressed me with the beauty, economy and force of its language. I immediately got my hands on his collected poems via interlibrary loan, only to discover that this particular work was, for me at any rate, probably his best. It is a very powerful little work, yet completely wrong-headed in its view of the animal world -- in the traditional judaeo-christian way.
They do not live in the world,
Are not in time and space.
From birth to death hurled
No word do they have, not one
To plant a foot upon,
Were never in any place.
For with names the world was called
Out of the empty air,
With names was built and walled,
Line and circle and square,
Dust and emerald;
Snatched from deceiving death
By the articulate breath.
But these have never trod
Twice the familiar track,
Never never turned back
Into the memoried day.
All is new and near
In the unchanging Here
Of the fifth great day of God,
That shall remain the same,
Never shall pass away.
On the sixth day we came.
This wrong-headed counterintuitive view of things is rooted in the opening statement of the Gospel of St. John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." The traditional religious/scientific view of the animal world holds that, having no spoken language understood by us, animals have therefore no thoughts, no concepts, no feelings, no memories, no sense of a future or past; that they live in an eternal present reality in which they are but passive participants. That surely doesn't sound like my sleddogs!
From time to time I have recited this poem to one or another of my lead dogs. Invariably their only (telepathic) response is, "Boss, if 'these have never trod twice the familiar track,' then when we go out on that long trail into the wilderness -- you in BIG TROUBLE!"
It's late autumn in the Yukon, with nighttime temperatures down to -10C and just a degree or two above freezing in the afternoon. The days have been bright and clear lately; there's still a little warmth in the low yellow sun. In the kennel, most of the bitches have come in heat. It is more than time to think about the next generation. We have quite a few bitches who have never been bred; quite a few males nine to twelve years old who haven't any progeny. The dogyard has been maxed out, nobody was interested in us for the past five years, so our breeding programme suffered.
Now things have changed. There's a little interest, finally. It's time to play catch-up in the breeding pen. We have a big exercise yard on a sloping, well-treed part of the property, about 55 meters on a side. Our canine couples can run around together in the afternoon sun, getting familiar with one another and bonding, while Isa and I sit on a log bench and watch. When things get serious, we are there to lend a quiet helping hand or restrain a nervous virgin bitch. Seeing our Seppalas follow one another around the perimeter of this big pen, backlit by the low sun, we see a natural beauty that makes show dogs seem grotesque and ugly. Seppala colours harmonise and blend with the northern landscape; their markings are often a quiet kind of canine camouflage. I would not trade the least of these guys for the Siberian Husky Club of America's National Specialty Winner.
Seppalas amaze me with their co-operative attitudes in all they do, even in mating. The males seem to expect that we will be present and help; some of them will not get down to business until they are sure we're ready to assist. The females accept and expect that I will restrain and hold them for the first (sometimes agonising) minute or two; if it's painful for them (as it sometimes is at first), they may bite gently at my gloved hand to say "owee, it hurts, Boss," looking at me sheepishly and apologetically, then lapping my face to assure me no harm was intended. Nature has played the dog a cruel trick in making mating such a tricky and potentially painful affair. I'm more than happy to stand by and make things as easy as I can for them, and yes, to take a record shot with my camera just to prove that the mating of these two particular individuals did actually take place as stated. Laugh if you like. It's cheap, easy insurance against the malicious rumour-mongering set, so of course they are the very ones who are most determined to ridicule.
I pay for my relaxation in the exercise yard on these bright days, though. When the breeding's over, I pick up the chainsaw and hit the bush, cutting winter stovewood. Chainsaw work hits me right in the lower back; I can't keep at it for very long. So I cut firewood one tank of gas at a time. That's more than enough wood to tucker me out hauling it in and stacking it, anyway. Tomorrow is another day; if we don't get enough wood in before the snow flies, then we'll just do what we did our first winter in the Yukon, and haul firewood out of the bush with the dog teams. Somehow I just can't quite imagine that on these sunny autumn afternoons. But the firewood is serious business, because this halcyon weather won't last long.
Today I heard from my old friend in Spain, Ramón Rojas. Like Isa and myself, he has Seppalas and Solovyev Russian import Siberian sleddogs -- in other words, SSSDs. And like us, he has a kennel full of old dogs and is wondering whether to bring things quietly to a close or to renew his kennel operation by frantically breeding, at the last minute, a new generation of pups to carry on.
I first met Ramón a little over ten years ago, when he drove up to my farmhouse in Spain and politely introduced himself, telling me his name and saying, "I believe I have the brother of your Russian dog." And that was exactly the case: Ramón had bought Shapochka iz Solovyev from Czech musher Ivan Síbrt, "Shapka" being a litter mate of our dog Shakal iz Solovyev. Ramón had excellent luck with Shapka, who became the main leader of his racing team. Ramón bought several Seppalas from us, and when we left Catalunya, I brought two additional Markovo Seppalas from the Carolyn Ritter kennel to Ramón just before going.
Ramón had previous sleddog experience -- with Samoyeds! Seppalas were a revelation to him. He trained his team in the mountains, ran in the mountain races of Spain and France, and in recent years has done winter dogsled excursion work with ANGAKA on the Plateau de Beille in Pyrenean France. He writes, "really these dogs have brought a lot to my life; they are excellent animals and with them I've passed the best years of my life, being able to do something really fulfilling."
Nobody knows about Ramón and his dogs. He is a very private person. He breeds very little, sells very few dogs. And now he has 17 dogs over ten years old, out of a total of 27. Not surprisingly, he feels a little depressed and discouraged. (You would, too, if seventeen of your closest friends were soon to die of old age.) I'm hoping my buddy Ramón, who is a kind, sensitive person and one of the best friends I've ever had, will somehow find the strength and determination to renew his kennel and to join us in strengthening the growing Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed. We need more people like Ramón. We need more dogs like his. I feel for my friend in his pain and confusion. He is experiencing the hardest part of owning sleddogs.