A couple of years ago Chelsea,
our dog, accidentally got into a fight with a woodchuck (she was
exploring a large hole beside the walking trail in the conservation are
near our home, and the sharp-clawed woodchuck didn't like the invasion
of her den and emerged and attacked). Chelsea was unsure what to make
of this creature, and she first approached and barked, and then, when
it squealed and lunged, she backed off and the woodchuck retreated.
Chelsea seemed fine, and was a bit distraught but made no sound of
distress, so we continued on our walk.
The next day we noticed Chelsea was licking herself on one side and I
went to check to see if she'd picked up some burrs. To my astonishment
I found a gash four inches (10cm) long and nearly one inch (2.5cm)
deep. It was invisible under her fur but was still bleeding -- a battle
wound. If we hadn't been paying attention we would never have known. If
it had been on a different part of her body she might have died. The
wound required several stitches and a long time to fully heal. We
resolved to keep a closer eye on her health from then on.
A month ago, we were going out for groceries and, as usual, Chelsea
came along for the car ride. With her arthritis and her hypothyroid
condition she's a little tentative now about jumping into the back seat
of the van, but she made it all right. We were doing up our seatbelts
when suddenly Chelsea let out a terrible howl, just like a wolf's. We
panicked and rushed back to see what was wrong, convinced she must have
injured herself somehow. It was a cold day and my wife had strapped on
her coat, and in walking through between the middle bucket seats to the
back bench seat Chelsea had got caught and couldn't squeeze forward or
back. She was completely unhurt, but was terrified and shaken by this
experience of being trapped. A serious wound she took in stride without a whimper, but the thought of being immobilized, imprisoned was unbearable.
How different she is from humans! From childhood we howl for help --
from parents and then when we're older from doctors -- at the first
sign of pain. We measure out our childhood with band-aids. But we learn
to take imprisonment stoically, silently, dutifully. Soon we even learn
to lock ourselves in -- in
our rooms with 'keep out' signs on the door, in seatbelts in locked
cars,and in homes locked against outsiders, and some even in gated,
wired 'communities' -- voluntary prisons. Our imprisonment grows from
being forced to stand in the corner, to being forced to sit in
oppressive classrooms, to victimization by the cliques and bullies in
the schoolyard, to 'being grounded', to the humiliation of having to
pay and volunteer for even more stifling 'education' in universities,
to groveling for jobs, employment contracts and wage slavery, to the
'bonds' of matrimony, to addiction to consumption and debt, just
another form of imprisonment, and finally to fear on a global scale --
of criminals at every turn, of terrorists and tyrants -- causing us to
want to lock up our loved ones and put barbed wire around our whole
country.
This then, it seems to me, is the real difference between humans and
other animals: We can take imprisonment but not pain, and all the rest
of life on our planet can accept pain but finds imprisonment
unbearable. Perhaps then it's not surprising that we call imprisonment
without pain 'humane'. If you've ever watched chickens in battery
cages, you know nature doesn't see it that way.
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
